Ih   ^Q,   ^^ 


.^^.^  ot  *«  SX'-Nia;  *,„,^^^^ 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


She//- 


BR  121  .E37  1889 
Eaton,  Arthur  Wentworth 

Hamilton,  1849-1937. 
The  heart  of  the  creeds 


% 


The  Heart  of  the  Creeds 


HISTORICAL    RELIGION    IN    THE    LIGHT 
OF    MODERN    THOUGHT 


BY 


/ 

ARTHUR   WENTWORTH    EATON 


SECOND    EDITION 


NEW   YORK   AND   LONDON 

G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 

CI^E  ^nitlurboclur  ^res? 

1889 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

ARTHUR    WENTWORTH    H.    EATON 
1888 


Press  of 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York 


TO   THE 
CHERISHED   MEMORY   OF   TWO   WHO  HAVE  GONE  FROM   EARTH 

MY    MOTHFR 

ANNA  AUGUSTA  WILLOUGHBY  HAMILTON 

EATON 

AND    MY    FRIEND 

ELISHA    MULFORD,    LL.D. 

%  bcbicate  this  book 


111 


PREFACE. 

In  my  ministry  I  have  continually  felt  the 
need  of  some  book  which,  in  a  clear  and  con- 
cise way,  should  put  before  people  the  rational 
theology  of  the  early  Church  and  of  the  best 
thinkers  of  our  own  time,  and  in  so  doing  set 
forth  the  undisputed  religious  principles  which 
make  the  basis  of  the  Creeds  and  Institutions 
of  historical  Christianity. 

This  book,  which  I  have  dedicated  to  her 
from  whom  I  learned  my  first  lessons  of  rever- 
ence for  divine  truth,  and  to  the  master  of 
thought,  whose  friendship  I  was  privileged  to 
share  in  later  life,  tries  to  make  clear  the  univer- 
sal meaning  in  the  rites  and  symbols  of  the 
historic  Faith,  since,  before  the  Christian  con- 
science can  be  delivered  from  narrow  doubts 
and  Christian  society  from  strifes  and  divisions, 
men  must  learn  to  discriminate  fairly  between 
what  is  necessary  and  what  is  accidental  in 
religion.     Writing  it  I  have  had  in  mind,  chiefly 

V 


vi  Preface, 

the  large  class  of  young  thinkers  among  the 
laity  who,  like  myself,  have  often  been  sorely 
puzzled  by  the  contradictions,  and  misled  by 
the  mistakes  of  popular  theology,  and  to  whom 
early  Christian  thought  is  little  known. 

There  are  books  like  Caird's  **  Philosophy  of 
Religion,"  Mulford's  ''  Republic  of  God,"  Mau- 
rice's "  Theological  Essays  "  and  other  writings, 
Hunger's  ''  Freedom  of  Faith,"  Prof.  Allen's 
*' Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,"  Dean 
Stanley's  *'  Christian  Institutions,"  Hatch's 
"  Growth  of  Church  Institutions,"  and  R.  E. 
Bartlett's  Bampton  Lectures  for  1888,  which 
are  accessible  to  all.  In  these  books  the  scien- 
tific basis  and  broader  aspects  of  religion  are 
ably  and  fully  shown,  and  in  their  scholarly  and 
reverent  teachings  many  thoughts  here  briefly 
indicated  will  be  found  in  more  expanded  form. 

Boston,  Easter  Week,  1888. 


"  Below  the  surface  stream,  shallow  and  light, 
Of  what  we  say  we  feel  ;  below  the  stream, 
As  light,  of  what  we  think  we  feel,  there  flows, 
With  noiseless  current,  strong,  obscure,  and  deep, 
The  central  stream  of  what  we  feel  indeed." 

— Matthew  Arnold. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. — God 

I 

II. — Man 

21 

III. — Christ        .... 

•       39 

IV.— The  Creeds      . 

.       6i 

v.— The  Bible 

.         .       83 

VI.— The  Church     . 

.     103 

VII. — The  Sacraments      . 

.     127 

VIIL— The  Liturgy    . 

.     153 

IX.     The  Future  Life     . 

.     177 

vn 


"  The  supreme  truths  which  speak  to  every  believing  heart, 
the  way  of  salvation  which  is  the  same  in  all  ages,  the  clear 
voice  of  God's  love  so  tender  and  personal  and  simple  that 
a  child  can  understand  it — these  are  things  which  must 
abide  with  us,  and  prove  themselves  mighty  from  age  to  age 
apart  from  all  scientific  study." — Robertson  Smith. 

"  The  deepest  truths  are  always  becoming  commonplaces  till 
they  are  revivified  by  thought.  And  they  are  true  thinkers 
and  benefactors  of  their  kind  Avho,  having  thought  them  over 
once  more  and  passed  them  through  the  alembic  of  their  own 
hearts,  bring  them  forth  fresh-minded,  and  make  them  tell 
anew  on  their  generation," — Principal  Shairp,  "  Culture  and 
Religion." 

"  Duty  is  to  crush  out  fanaticisms  and  revere  the  Infinite, 
to  cultivate  the  human  soul,  to  defend  mystery  against 
miracle,  to  adore  the  incomprehensible  and  reject  the  absurd, 
to  purify  faith  and  obliterate  superstition  from  the  garden 
of  God." — Victor  Hugo. 

"  Nothing  can  be  worse  than  stagnation  of  thought.  It 
was  an  unhealthy  condition  of  things  when  all  was  taken  for 
granted  ;  when  authority  was  invoked  to  stifle  inquiry,  and 
those  who  thought  at  all,  thought  only  as  their  fathers  had 
thought  before  them  ;  and  when  within  the  limits  of  the 
Church,  at  least,  every  thing  was  supposed  to  have  been  set- 
tled once  for  all  at  the  Reformation,  or  at  the  last  revision  of 
the  Prayer  Book.  We  can  hardly  imagine  the  case  of  a 
thinking  person  who  is  not  also  at  times  a  perplexed  or  even 
a  doubting  person."— Rev.  Stanley  Leathes,  "  The  Chris- 
tian Creed." 

"  Thou  shalt  not  heed  the  voice  of  man  when  it  agrees  not 
with  the  voice  of  God  in  thine  own  soul. 

"Nature  shall  be  to  thee  as  a  symbol.  The  life  of  the 
soul,  in  conscious  union  with  the  Infinite,  shall  be  for  thee 
the  only  real  existence. 

"  This  pleasing  show  of  an  external  world  through  which 
thou  art  passing  is  given  thee  to  interpret  by  the  light  which 
is  in  thee." — Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes,   "  Life  of  Emerson." 

"It  is  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference  where  a  thing 
originated  ;  the  only  question  is  :  Is  it  true  in  and  for  it- 
self? "—Hegel. 


GOD. 


"  When  the  martyr  Attalus,  in  the  persecution  of  the  Gal- 
lican  Christians  under  Marcus  Aurelius,  was  asked  by  his 
judges  what  was  the  name  of  God,  he  replied  :  *  'O  Oeo'S  ovojua 

OVK  EX£l  00^  aV^pOOTtO'i.'  " EUSEBIUS,    v.,    I. 

"  Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven."  — The  Lord's  Prayer. 

"  One  God  and  Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all  and  through 
all,  and  in  you  all." — St.  Paul  to  the  Ephesians. 

"  For  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being." 
— St.  Paul  to  the  Athenians. 

"  I  believe  in  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of 
heaven  and  earth,  and  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible." — 
Nicene  Creed. 

"  Thou,  O  God  hast  made  us  for  thee,  and  our  heart  is 
restless  till  it  rests  in  thee." — St.  Augustine. 

"  It  is  said  of  Frances  Power  Cobbe  that  '  one  day,  musing 
on  the  great  problems  of  existence,  she  said  to  herself  that, 
although  she  knew  nothing  of  God  or  of  any  law  beyond  her 
own  soul,  she  would,  at  least,  be  true  to  that  and  merit  the 
approbation  of  her  own  conscience.  This  resolution  brought 
her  almost  immediately  a  renewed  faith  in  God.'" — West- 
tninster  Review y  December,  1845. 

"The  conscience  of  man  presumes  the  being  of  God  ;  it 
presumes  a  righteous  being.  There  can  be  no  adequate  ap- 
prehension of  conscience,  nor  explanation  of  the  fact  of  con- 
science, that  does  not  imply  the  being  of  God,  and  his  rela- 
tions to  man. 

"  All  that  God  is  he  imparts,  he  reveals.  He  is  no  more  a 
distant  being,  that  man  cannot  approach  him  ;  he  is  not  an 
inaccessible  being,  that  man  cannot  find  him  ;  he  is  not  an 
unknown  being,  but  what  he  is  he  has  made  known." — 
MuLFORD,  "  Republic  of  God." 

"  Father  of  all  !  In  every  age, 
In  every  clime  adored, 
By  saint,  by  savage,  and  by  sage, 
Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord." 

— Pope's  Universal  Prayer. 


GOD. 

Belief  in  God  is  the  fundamental  article  of 
every  religious  creed,  the  foundation  stone  of 
every  theology.  Throughout  Christendom  the 
people  of  all  churches  and  sects  are  unanimous 
in  saying:  "  I  believe  in  God."  But,  to  many 
persons,  it  perhaps  does  not  occur  that  this 
fundamental  tenet  of  theology  is  held  with  very 
great  differences  in  the  religious  world.  Within 
the  Christian  Church  itself,  professing  to  base 
its  beliefs  on  the  teachings  of  Jesus,  and  to 
hold,  at  least  in  essentials,  a  united  faith,  there 
have  been  great  and  important  differences  in 
men's  conceptions  of  what  God  is.  The  changes 
in  popular  theology  from  age  to  age  have,  in 
fact,  resulted  chiefly  from  a  growing  reason- 
ableness or  unreasonableness  in  this  funda- 
mental  doctrine. 

In  the  same  community  to-day  are  often 
to  be  found  churches  from  whose  pulpits  or 
chancels   the   teaching  about   God   differs   so 

3 


4  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

radically  that  we  are  compelled  to  define  for 
ourselves  with  great  care,  separating  between 
true  and  false  in  them,  our  own  beliefs  in  Him. 
Especially  is  this  necessary  when  v/e   further 
see   that   sectarian   strifes   and    controversies, 
those  dark  shadows  ever  lurking  in  the  back- 
ground of  church  life,  are  directly  traceable  to 
conflicting  views  of  God.     The  sin  most  abhor- 
rent to  a  devout  Hebrew  of  ancient  times  was 
that   of  idolatry,  the   root  principle  of  which 
was,  as  it  ever  is,  a  distorted  image  of  God  in 
the  mind.     And  our  own  Litany,  praying  that 
men  may  be  delivered  from  "  heresy  and  schism,'* 
asks  in  that  familiar  petition  that  people  shall 
be  kept  from  false  conceptions  of  God,  since 
true  ideas  concerning  Him  have  been  at  the 
bottom  of  all  peace-bringing,  elevating,  spiritual 
faiths,  false  opinions  at  the  bottom  of  all  fierce 
and  degrading  theologies. 

One  of  the  truths  concerning  the  Bible,  that 
careful  study  of  its  various  parts  has  made 
clear,  is  that  the  Hebrews  did  not,  by  any 
means,  all  have  similar  conceptions  of  God  ; 
that  the  popular  theism  of  the  Pentateuch,  for 
example,  is  of  a  very  much  lower  order  than 
that  of  the  later  prophets;  that  Jesus,  in  His 


God.  5 

day,  held  very  different  views  of  God  from  those 
of  the  chief  theologians  of  Judea,  among  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees. 

Jehovah,  to  the  earlier  Hebrews  and  the 
popular  theologians  of  our  Saviour's  time,  was 
only  one  of  the  great  national  or  tribal  gods, 
greater  and  better  than  all  others,  but,  like 
them,  the  god  of  one  people,  having  many  of 
the  imperfections  that  the  other  Semitic  tribes, 
the  Moabites  and  Ammonites  and  Philistines, 
who  lived  near  the  Hebrews,  ascribed  to  their 
gods.  In  their  thought  they  conceived  of  Him 
as  *'  a  great,  non-natural,  magnified  man,"  who 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth  as  an  archi- 
tect makes  a  house ;  who  got  angry,  and 
changed  His  mind,  and  sent  plagues  on  His  ene- 
mies, and  fought  the  battles  of  His  subjects, 
performing  stupendous  feats  in  the  sphere  of 
nature  in  order  to  frighten  the  one  or  help  the. 
other.  The  prophets  and  others,  on  the  con- 
trary, often  rose  to  the  most  exalted  planes  of 
thought  about  God.  "  Canst  thou,  by  search- 
ing, find  out  God?"  they  say.  **  Canst  thou 
find  out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection  ?  It  is 
high  as  heaven  ;  what  canst  thou  do  ?  Deeper 
than  hell,  what  canst  thou  know  ?  "     ''  For  thus 


6  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

saith  the  high  and  lofty  One,  that  inhabiteth 
eternity,  whose  name  is  Holy  ;  I  dwell  in  the 
high  and  holy  place,  with  him,  also,  that  is  of  a 
contrite  and  humble  spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit 
of  the  humible,  and  to  revive  the  heart  of  the 
contrite  ones." 

Such  passages  as  these,  from  the  Books  of 
Job  and  Isaiah,  show  that  their  authors  had 
risen  far  above  the  popular  conceptions,  in 
their  thought  of  God,  just  as  in  their  times 
Kleanthes  and  Plato  and  other  great  Greek 
writers  rose  far  above  the  popular  mythology 
of  their  country.  But  the  Hebrew  idea  of  God 
was  most  fully  exalted  and  spiritualized  by 
Jesus,  and  after  him  St.  Paul,  who  taught  that 
God  was  not  a  changeable  deity,  made  in  the 
likeness  of  man,  but  the  unchanging  spiritual 
life  of  the  universe,  and  the  Father  of  all  man- 
kind. "God  is  a  Spirit,"  Christ  said  to  the 
woman  of  Samaria,  when  she  spoke  to  Him 
about  the  conflict  between  the  Hebrew  belief 
that  true  worship  could  be  performed  only  at 
Jerusalem,  and  the  Samaritan  belief  that  Mt. 
Gerizim  was  the  proper  place  for  it, — "  God  is  a 
Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him  must  wor- 
ship in  spirit  and  in  truth,"  thus  refusing  to 


God.  7 

localize  the  Divine  Presence,  or  limit  the  com- 
munication of  the  Divine  Spirit. 

St.  Paul,  at  Athens,  a  little  more  than  thirty- 
years  afterward,  uttered  these  eloquent  words, 
in  exactly  the  same  spirit  and  meaning: 
"  God  who  made  the  world  and  all  things 
therein,  seeing  that  He  is  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth,  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with 
hands.  Neither  is  He  served  by  the  hands  of 
men,  as  though  he  needed  any  thing  ;  for  it  is 
He  that  giveth  unto  all  life  and  breath  and  all 
things.  And  He  made  of  one  blood  all  the 
nations  of  mankind,  to  dwell  upon  the  face  of 
the  whole  earth  ;  and  ordained  to  each  the  ap- 
pointed seasons  of  their  existence,  and  the 
bounds  of  their  habitation.  That  they  should 
seek  God,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him 
and  find  Him,  though  He  is  not  far  from  every 
one  of  us  ;  for  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being  ;  as  certain  also  of  your  own 
poets  have  said  :  '  For  we  are  also  His  off- 
spnng. 

The  views  of  God  held  and  taught  by  Jesus 
and   St.   Paul  were  indeed  spiritual  and    pro- 

^  This  quotation  is  from  Aratus,  a  Greek  poet,  like  St. 
Paul  himself  a  native  of  the  province  of  Cilicia. 


8  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

found,  but  all  their  followers,  the  new  converts 
to  Christianity,  did  not  share  in  them.  Side  by 
side  in  the  Christian  Church  grew  up  two  en- 
tirely distinct  sorts  of  theistic  belief  :  one  crude 
and  anthropomorphic,  like  the  earlier  Hebrew, 
or  Greek  polytheistic  belief ;  the  other  profound 
and  philosophical,  like  the  thought  expressed 
in  the  passages  quoted  from  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John  and  the  Book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

In  the  minds  of  one  set  of  thinkers  was  firmly 
rooted  the  Oriental  idea  of  God  as  a  great,  man- 
like being  living  far  away  from  the  world,  con- 
trolling it  through  intermediate  agents,  much  as 
the  Czar  of  Russia  controls  that  part  of  his 
empire  which  lies  across  the  Ural  Mountains. 
As  theology  became  more  of  a  science  in  the 
Christian  Church,  this  view  of  God  as  an  abso- 
lute monarch,  made  in  the  likeness  of  an  earthly 
despot,  took  on  more  definiteness,  and  from  it, 
by  a  natural  process,  in  the  Western  world, 
sprang  the  Augustinian  or,  as  we  know  it  bet- 
ter, Calvinistic  form  of  the  leading  Christian 
doctrines — Divinity  of  Christ,  Trinity,  Atone- 
ment, Heaven  and  hell. 

In  the  Calvinistic  thought,  the  world  was  a 
lifeless  machine  moved  by  the  will  of  a  Super- 


God.  9 

human  Being,  who  never  came  near  it.  Man 
also  was  His  creation,  but  the  relation  between 
him  and  God  was  no  more  than  that  between 
the  clay  pitcher  and  the  potter  who  moulds  it. 
Revelation  was  not  to  be  sought  in  the  better 
instincts  of  humanity,  and  the  process  of  his- 
tory, in  philosophy  and  poetry  and  art,  but 
merely  in  certain  utterances  of  the  few  inspired 
Hebrews  and  Christians  who  wrote  the  books 
of  the  Bible.  The  proof  of  God's  interest  in 
the  world  lay  not  in  His  continuous  renewal  of 
its  life,  and  in  the  increase  of  moral  and  intel- 
lectual power  among  men,  but  rather  in  certain 
interferences  with  the  regular  working  of  events, 
called  miracles.  Christ  was  not  the  highest 
expression  of  the  great  universal  fact  of  incar- 
nation, "■  God's  idea  of  man  completed,"  but  an 
incongruous  being,  neither  God  nor  man,  and 
yet  both. 

The  doctrine  of  Trinity  was  not  the  summing 
up  under  the  symbol  of  three-foldness  of  all  the 
great  attributes  of  God  which  have  their  root  in 
His  eternal  personality,  the  brief  expression  of 
all  the  highest  philosophy  concerning  the  rela- 
tion between  the  divine  and  the  human,  God 
and  His  creation,  but  rather  a  division  of  the 


lo  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

infinite  God  into  three  finite  personalities  in 
some  measure  antagonistic  to  each  other.  The 
Atonement  was  not  the  realization  in  humanity 
once  for  all,  in  Christ,  of  perfect  righteousness, 
the  one  complete  exhibition  of  sacrifice,  but 
rather,  as  Avith  the  heathen,  the  propitiation  by 
means  of  literal  blood  of  a  vengeful  and  deeply 
outraged  deity.  Heaven  and  hell  were  not 
progressive  states  of  mind  and  feeling,  condi- 
tions of  the  inner  Hfe  consequent  upon  obedience 
or  disobedience  to  natural  law,  but  rather 
places  of  physical  delight  or  torture,  into 
which,  at  death,  for  their  good  deeds  or  bad 
deeds,  men  were  arbitrarily  put  by  their  Crea- 
tor. Law  itself  was  not  the  eternal  expression 
of  the  life  of  the  universe,  so  much  as  the  fiat 
of  a  despotic  will. 

That  was  one,  and  because  it  requires  less 
grasp  of  intellect,  and  through  the  middle  ages 
was  most  in  harmony  with  the  imperial  temper 
and  aims  of  the  Church,  it  became  after  the 
fourth  century  the  popular  view  of  God,  and 
His  relation  to  the  world.  But  there  was  an^ 
other  and  better  theology  prevalent  during  the 
first  four  centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  which 
is  commonly  termed  the  conception  of  God  as 


God,  1 1 

**  immanent  in  the  world."  It  is  a  conception 
that  has  never  been  lost,  even  in  the  crudest 
and  darkest  times  of  religious  thought,  and 
now  that  the  intellect  of  man,  released  from  the 
fetters  that  bound  it  when  the  mediaeval  or 
Calvinistic  theologies  held  sway,  is  free  to  ap- 
proach all  the  sources  of  divine  knowledge,  to 
find  in  arguments  unrecognized  in  other  days 
its  strongest  proofs  of  God,  belief  in  God  as 
the  indwelling  Life  and  Power  of  the  Universe, 
Soul  of  all  things,  Omnipresent  Spirit,  Source 
of  strength  and  order,  Fountain  of  beauty, 
*'  Light  of  Light,"  who  dwelleth  on  high,  and 
humbleth  himself  to  behold  the  things  that 
are  in  heaven  and  in  the  earth,  is  necessarily 
coming  to  supplant  the  other  view.  In  the  bet- 
ter conception  God  is  not  a  person  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  are  persons;  not  as  Michael  Angelo 
painted  Him,  a  marvellous  man  "  with  the  brow 
of  Jove  and  the  lightning  in  his  grasp"  ;  but  the 
Great  Spiritual  Life,  who  robes  Himself  in  a 
world-vesture,  and  faintly  yet  truly  reveals  His 
noblest  attributes.  His  divine  character  in  the 
personality  of  man.  In  the  third  chapter  of 
Exodus  there  is  a  profound  passage  in  which 
God  is  said  to  have  told  Moses,  when  he  asked 


1 2  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

what  name  he  should  call  Him  by,  that  His 
name  was  simply  "  I  am/'  meaning  that  God  is 
too  great  to  be  understood  by  men,  or  named 
in  human  language.  *'  I  am  that  I  am !  "  And 
we  shall  probably  never  get  much  nearer  an 
adequate  description  of  God,  than  our  English 
Churchman,  Wordsworth  got,  in  his  "Lines 
Composed  a  Few  Miles  above  Tintern  Abbey," 
where  he  says  so  profoundly  that  God  had  re- 
vealed Himself  to  him  as, 

"  A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts  ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air. 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man  : 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

Tennyson,  in  his  little  fragment  called  ''  The 
Higher  Pantheism,"  writes  : 

"  Speak  to  Him  thou  for  He  hears. 
And  spirit  with  spirit  can  meet  ; 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing. 
Nearer  than  hands  and  feet." 

And  his  lines  breathe  much  the  same  spirit  as 
those  words  in  the  thirtieth  chapter  of  Deuter- 
onomy, used  also  by  St.  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to 


God.  13 

the  Romans  :  "  For  this  commandment  which 
I  command  thee  this  day,  it  is  not  hidden  from 
thee,  neither  is  it  far  off.  It  is  not  in  heaven 
that  thou  shouldest  say  :  Who  shall  go  up  for 
us  to  heaven,  and  bring  it  unto  us,  that  we 
may  hear  it,  and  do  it  ?  Neither  is  it  beyond 
the  sea,  that  thou  shouldest  say  :  Who  shall  go 
over  the  sea  for  us,  and  bring  it  unto  us,  that 
we  may  hear  it,  and  do  it  ?  But  the  word  is 
very  nigh  unto  thee,  in  thy  mouth,  and  in  thy 
heart,  that  thou  mayest  do  it."  Even  Pope 
writes  : 

"  All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole, 
"Whose  body  nature  is,  but  God  the  soul ; — 
To  Him  no  high,  no  low,  no  great,  no  small, 
He  fills,  He  bounds,  connects,  and  equals  all." 

And  Emerson  says : 

"  Draw,  if  thou  canst,  the  mystic  line 
Severing  rightly  His  from  thine  ; 
Which  is  human,  which  divine  ?  " 

Thus  the  incarnation  is  a  process  having  its 
highest  point  in  the  Christ ;  the  Trinity  is  the 
doctrine,  first,  of  God  as  unrevealed  and  unre- 
vealable,  God  in  the  great  unfathomableness  of 
His  being,  God  the  Father ;  second,  God  as 
immanent  in  nature  and  in  humanity,  God  as 


14  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

the  reason  or  light  of  all  men,  the  Son  who 
binds  together  all  things,  temporal  and  eternal, 
human  and  divine ;  third,  God  the  Sustainer 
and  Living  Spiritual  Power  of  the  visible  uni- 
verse and  of  man  its  noblest  member,  God  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Revelation,  in  its  largest  sense,  is 
to  be  sought  in  the  long  process  of  history  and 
the  life  of  man.  The  Atonement,  typically 
wrought  out  in  the  historic  Christ,  is  the  recon- 
ciliation of  the  spirit  of  man  with  the  highest 
truth,  with  God.  Heaven  and  hell  are  ever  ad- 
vancing conditions  of  the  soul  in  this  world,  and 
all  worlds  where  men  may  be. 

The  former  view  of  God  prevailed  in  the 
Western  Church  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
indeed  has  lasted  to  our  own  day,  and  this  fact 
is  largely  attributable  to  the  influence,  first, 
of  Tertullian,  and  then  of  the  Latin  father 
Augustine,  who  was  converted  to  Christianity 
in  the  year  387,  but  whose  mind  never  lost 
the  unhealthy  tone  it  had  received  from  the 
Manichasan  philosophy  to  which,  for  nineteen 
years,  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and  thirty, 
he  had  given  his  allegiance.  Certain  parts  of 
our  Prayer  Book  bear  the  impress  of  Augustine's 
thought,  the  Litany  perhaps  showing  it  most  of 


God,  1 5 

all.  But  the  oldest  parts  of  the  Prayer  Book, 
and  especially  the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed, 
which  we  say  every  Sunday,  the  universal 
creed  of  Christendom,  were  made  under  the 
influence  of  the  larger  and  freer  and  more 
rational  theology  of  a  time  nearer  to  Christ 
and  the  Apostles  than  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries  when  Augustine  lived  and  wrote. 
The  chief  representatives,  in  the  early  Church, 
of  this  theology  are  the  much  more  profound 
and  rational  thinkers,  Clement  and  Origen, 
whose  thought  illustrates  what  is  known 
as  the  Alexandrian  theology,  and  Athana- 
sius,  who  has  always  in  the  history  of  doc- 
trines borne  the  name  of  *'  The  Father  of 
Orthodoxy." 

These,  in  brief  outline,  are  the  two  forms  of 
belief  about  God  that  have  prevailed  in  the 
Christian  world,  and  their  histories.  The  Au- 
gustinian  theology  has  hitherto  colored  most 
of  the  religious  thought  of  this  continent,  but 
with  the  increase  of  independent  thought  and 
study,  the  older  and  better  and  more  truly  or- 
thodox form  of  theology  of  the  Alexandrian 
fathers  of  the  Church  is  returning,  and  in  intel- 
ligent and  broadly  thinking  quarters,  is  fast  sup- 


1 6  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

planting  the  cruder  form  of  religious  belief  that 
has  prevailed. 

This  older,  more  rational  view  of  God,  as 
everywhere  present  in  the  world,  is  sometimes 
felt  to  be  too  vague  and  obscure  for  ordinary 
minds  to  grasp,  but  the  truth  is,  God  is  so  great 
that  when  we  think  most  truly  about  Him,  we 
are  least  able  to  express  our  thought.  It  was 
the  exceeding  poverty  of  the  other  view  of  God 
that  made  it  possible  to  think  definitely  of  Him 
as  a  great  man  sitting  on  a  throne  in  the  dis- 
tant heavens,  whence  He  issued  laws  to  men. 
All  our  language  about  Him  is  figurative.  He 
has  no  material  form,  no  jewelled  throne  above 
the  sky,  no  literal  judgment-book  open  before 
him.  He  dwells  everywhere ;  His  throne  is 
the  eternal  order  of  the  universe ;  His  reign 
the  supremacy  of  law  and  love ;  His  judgment- 
book  the  conscience  of  the  race.  We  cannot 
make  adequate  theologies  ;  our  best  thought 
comes  so  far  below  the  great  reality,  and  our 
richest  language  is  so  poor.  We  can  speak  of 
God  only  in  figures  and  poetically,  and  we  must 
always  beware  of  mistaking  this  figurative  lan- 
guage for  scientific  or  precise  description.  It  is 
this  mistake  that  has  led  the  Church,  when  the 


God.  1 7 

Augustinian  theology  has  prevailed,  into  per- 
secutions and  cruelties  innumerable,  while  the 
Alexandrian  theology  has  generally  fostered  a 
spirit  of  peace. 

Yet,  in  conceiving  of  God  as  everywhere 
present  in  the  universe,  creating,  renewing,  in- 
spiring, life  of  our  life,  inspirer  of  our  best 
thoughts  and  deeds,  we  are  not  Pantheists. 
Pantheism  confounds  God  with  His  creation  ; 
Christianity  has  always  maintained  as  carefully 
the  trayiscendence  of  God  as  His  immanence. 
He  is  in  all  things  ;  and  yet  the  highest  and 
most  essential  truth  concerning  Him  is  that 
He  is  a  Personal  God.  But  his  Personality, 
which  is  the  root  and  source  of  our  own,  His 
mind  and  affections,  of  which  ours  are  but 
"broken  lights,"  are  not  limited  like  ours.  All 
that  we  know  of  reason  and  right  emotion  in 
man  we  may  think  of  as  existing  in  unlimited 
fulness  in  God.  All  that  we  can  fathom  of  the 
mystery  of  human  souls  we  may  regard  as  ex- 
isting infinitely  in  Him  from  whom  human 
souls  come  forth. 

One  question  more  some  minds  will  be  glad 
to  have  touched  upon  in  this  chapter,  the  very 
important  question  as  to  the  proof  that  God 


1 8  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

exists  at  all.  In  the  old  New  England  theology 
this  would  have  been  the  first  thing  to  settle 
in  a  chapter  treating  of  belief  in  God  ;  but  we 
have  entirely  given  up  trying  to  prove  God's 
existence  from  the  mere  abstract  propositions 
of  thought,  or  from  the  observed  sequence  of 
nature,  or  fitness  of  means  to  ends,  or  from  any 
thing  outside  our  own  souls,  and  are  simply 
and  confidently  willing  to  assume  His  existence 
in  all  we  say  or  do.  The  highest  proof  of  God's 
existence  is  the  fact  that  we  are  able  to  think 
of  Him  at  all,  as  the  strongest  and  most  con- 
vincing argument  for  immortality  is  the  fact 
that  we  are  able  to  conceive  of  immortality. 
The  human  soul  is  both  finite  and  infinite,  both 
human  and  divine,  and  we  cannot  by  any  exer- 
cise of  the  mind  ever  help  believing  in  God. 
His  personality  is  the  source  of  our  personality, 
His  thought  the  source  of  our  deepest  thought. 
"  In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  be- 
ing," and  instead  of  going  to  books  for  argu- 
ments for  His  existence,  we  must  obey  the  in- 
junction of  an  old  seventeenth  century  divine 
of  our  Church  :  *'  Intra  te  quaere  Deum  :  "  Seek 
for  God  within  thine  own  soul. 

The  injunction  to  seek  for  God  within  one's 


God.  19 

own  soul,  seems  to  some  persons  very  vague 
and  unsatisfactory.  They  prefer  to  be  told  to 
seek  Him  in  something  He  has  done  or  is  de- 
clared to  have  done  outside  of  themselves.  It 
is  true  we  should  never  forget  to  see  God's 
revelation  of  Himself  without  us,  in  the  world 
of  nature,  or  in  the  record  of  the  movements 
of  human  life  and  thought  we  call  history. 
But  the  revelation  of  God  in  our  own  souls 
through  the  instincts  of  love,  justice,  sincerity, 
and  reverence  on  which  we  act,  and  the  voice 
of  reason  which  always  speaks  within  us,  pre- 
cedes any,  however  important,  revelation  with- 
out us.  If  men  would  habitually  think  not  of 
what  God  has  done,  but  of  what  their  own 
souls,  all  the  truth  and  reason  within  them,  de- 
clare that  He  is,  they  would  find  the  process 
of  belief  in  Him  strangely  easy. 

"The  pure  in  heart  may  know  God,  but  the 
critical  understanding  can  never  comprehend 
Him,"  says  a  modern  English  philosopher ; 
and  these  forcible  words  were  written  near  the 
close  of  the  second  century,  by  Theophilus,  a 
bishop  of  Antioch :  "  If  thou  sayest.  Show  me 
thy  God,  I  answer,  Show  me  first  thy  man,  and 
I   will   show   thee   my  God.      Show   me   first 


20  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

whether  the  eyes  of  thy  soul  see,  and  the  ears 
of  thy  heart  hear.  For  as  the  eyes  of  the  body 
perceive  earthly  things,  light  and  darkness, 
white  and  black,  beauty  and  deformity,  so  the 
ears  of  the  heart  and  the  eyes  of  the  soul  can 
see  God." 

Our  own  New  England  philosopher,  Emer- 
son, says,  in  his  essay  on  the  "  Over  Soul " : 
"  We  know  that  all  spiritual  being  is  in  man. 
A  wise  old  proverb  says,  '  God  comes  to  see  us 
without  bell ' — that  is,  as  there  is  no  screen  or 
ceihng  between  our  heads  and  the  infinite 
heavens,  so  is  there  no  bar  or  wall  in  the  soul, 
where  man  the  effect  ceases  and  God  the  cause 
begins." 

Thus  he  gave  us,  and  thus  we  must  explain 
Jesus*  great  doctrine  of  the  universal  Father- 
hood of  God.  There  is  an  eternal  relationship 
between  God  and  every  created  soul.  The 
true  laws  of  life  are  the  laws  of  His  life  in  us. 
Not  only  is  belief  in  Him  possible,  but  actual 
unbelief  is  impossible.  When  men  are  most 
questioning  His  existence,  they  are,  often, 
most  profoundly  believing  in  Him.  It  may 
be  truly  said  that  scepticism  never  reaches  the 
soul. 


MAN. 


"  So  God  created  man  in  His  own  image  ;  in  the  image  of 
God  created  He  him." — Genesis,  i.,  27. 

"  The  Platonic  view  of  the  soul,  as  a  spiritual  substance,  an 
effluence  from  Godhood,  which  under  certain  conditions  be- 
comes incarnated  in  perishable  forms  of  matter,  is  doubtless 
the  view  most  consonant  with  the  present  state  of  our  knowl- 
edge."— John  Fiske,  "  Destiny  of  Man,"  p,  43. 

"The  divinity  that  stirs  within  us." — Addison. 

"  If  a  person  could  be  persuaded  of  this  principle  as  he 
ought,  that  we  are  all  originally  descended  from  God,  and 
that  He  is  the  Father  of  men  and  gods,  I  conceive  that  he 
would  never  think  of  himself  meanly  or  ignobly. 

"  If  what  philosophers  say  of  the  kinship  between  God  and 
men  be  true,  what  has  any  one  to  do,  but  like  Socrates,  when 
he  is  asked  what  countryman  he  is,  never  to  say  that  he  is  a 
citizen  of  Athens,  or  of  Corinth,  but  of  the  Universe." — 
Epictetus. 

"  Know  thyself  then  the  pride  of  His  creation,  the  link 
uniting  divinity  and  matter  !     Behold  a  part  of  God  Himself 
in  thee  !     Remember  thine  own  dignity,  nor  dare  descend  to 
evil  or  to  meanness." — Ancient  Brahminical  Writing. 
"  Every  inmost  aspiration 
Is  God's  angel,  undefiled, 
And  in  every  '  O  my  Father,' 
Slumbers  deep  a  '  Here,  my  child.'  " 

"  Man  is  the  free,  personal  unity  of  spirit  and  nature.  In 
every  human  individual  there  exists  something  uncondi- 
tioned. " — M  artensen. 

"  Human  thought  cannot  recognize  itself  as  imperfect  and 
relative  without  conceiving  God  as  perfect  and  absolute.  We 
see  every  thing  in  God." — Malebranche. 

*'  The  aim  of  man  should  be  to  secure  the  highest  and  most 
harmonious  development  of  his  powers  to  a  complete  and 
consistent  whole." — HuMBOLDT. 


22 


MAN. 

The  central  principle  of  Christianity,  in  op- 
position to  some  of  the  older  faiths  of  the  East, 
was  the  value  of  the  individual.  Christ  taught 
that  not  man  alone  but  men  were  the  objects 
of  the  divine  love  and  care.  And  in  all  His 
teaching  concerning  the  human  soul,  He  as- 
sumed in  men  not  merely  the  capacity  for 
knowledge  of  the  divine,  but  actual  possession 
of  the  divine  nature,  by  which  alone  such 
responsibility  in  divine  things  as  he  attributed 
to  man  could  be  regarded  as  possible. 

The  Christian  belief  in  mankind  as  divinely 
related,  is  so  spontaneous,  so  fundamental  to 
the  best  religious  thought,  that  no  theology 
making  a  contrary  declaration  has  ever  been 
able  to  shield  itself  from  the  charge  of  self- 
contradiction.  Theology,  to  be  consistent,  must 
declare  frankly,  and  take  as  its  starting-point 
the  doctrine  of  Jesus,  that  the  deepest  truth 
about  men  is  that  they  are  the  sons  of  God. 

23 


24  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

Confusion  regarding  this  fundamental  truth  in- 
evitably results  in  confusion  as  to  the  meaning 
and  the  means  of  salvation,  and  the  purpose  of 
God  in  the  establishment  of  His  Church.  And 
in  this  we  have  the  explanation  of  much  of  the 
vagueness  and  uncertainty  in  matters  of  belief,  as 
well  as  the  conflict  of  opinions,  that  exists  with- 
in the  churches  of  the  modern  Christian  world. 

Most  people  have  received  from  their  teach- 
ers a  double  education  in  religious  things.  The 
Bible  and  other  religious  books  sometimes 
speak  so  strongly  of  human  unbelief  and  sin 
as  almost  to  warrant  the  teaching  that  there  is 
no  natural  relationship  between  the  soul  and 
God,  but  rather  a  great  wall  of  separation, 
never  to  be  removed  ;  no  closer  bond  of  sym- 
pathy than  among  men  exists  between  the 
ruler  and  his  subjects.  And  such  teaching  is 
part  of  the  teaching  of  popular  religion. 

But  the  view  of  these  utterances  which  finds 
in  them  the  foundation  stones  of  a  theology 
radically  at  variance  with  that  in  whose  reasona- 
ble teaching  that  man  is  truly  God-related  we 
have  all  likewise  been  educated,  is,  of  course, 
superficial  and  false. 

In  days  when  the  world  knew  far  less  than  it 


Man.  2  5 

does  now  of  the  value  of  charity,  ''the  bond  of 
peace/'  when  instead  of  mercy  and  the  sense  of 
human  brotherhood,  despotic  cruelty  and  dis- 
regard of  private  rights  prevailed,  it  is  not 
strange  that  a  system  of  theology  should  have 
grown  up  which,  so  far  as  it  was  able,  ignored 
the  simple  relationship  of  man  to  God,  and  on 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  imposed  a  grim  and  un- 
lovely structure  of  logic,  or  an  artificial  ritual 
method  it  called  ''  the  way  of  life."  Two  sys- 
tems continually  waging  warfare  against  each 
other,  the  Sacerdotalism  of  Rome  and  the  Cal- 
vinism of  many  Protestant  sects,  thus  share  in 
the  radical  error  of  a  false  view  of  man's  funda- 
mental relationship  to  the  divine.  Calvinism 
declares  that  man  is  not  God's  child,  but  merely 
the  creation  of  His  hands,  in  his  nature  com- 
pletely at  variance  w^ith  truth  and  goodness  : 

"  To  all  that  's  good,  averse  and  blind, 
But  prone  to  all  that  's  ill  ; 
What  dreadful  darkness  veils  our  mind  ! 
How  obstinate  our  will  !  ' 

Conceived  in  sin,  (O  wretched  state  ! ) 
Before  we  draw  our  breath, 
The  first  young  pulse  begins  to  beat 
Iniquity  and  death."  ^ 

'  Watts'  Hymns. 


26  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

Whatever  we  do  or  think  before  conversion, 
is  necessarily  wrong,  since  our  whole  nature  is 
corrupt  and  wicked.  At  God's  hands  we  de- 
serve, not  the  treatment  which  children  have  a 
right  to  expect  at  the  hands  of  their  parents,  but 
only  wrath  and  punishment  for  the  sins  we  have 
committed,  or  what  is  worse,  the  evil  we  in- 
herit ;  and  whatever  of  good  He  gives  us  is  of 
His  ''  free  grace  and  bounty."  ^ 

Romanism  is  built  on  the  same  perverted 
view  of  man  and  his  relationship  to  God. 

Teaching  that  man  is  estranged  from  God  in 
every  fibre  of  his  soul  it  compels  him  to  come  un- 
der a  system,  like  that  of  many  heathen  religions, 
in  which  a  priesthood  and  sacrificial  rites  hold 
a  prominent  place,  before  he  can  properly  be 
regarded  as  a  child  of  God,  an  inheritor  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  So  on  the  basis  of  its 
mistaken  belief  regarding  man  Calvinism  has 
shaped  its  logic  of  regeneration,  and  justifica- 
tion by  faith,  and  future  reward  and  punish- 
ment ;  and  on  the  same  basis  Romanism  has 


^  The  Plymouth  Brethren,  who  represent  the  extremest 
form  of  Calvinism,  refuse  to  allow  "  unconverted  people  "  to 
use  the  Lord's  Prayer.  They  do  not  teach  it  to  their  children, 
and  they  are  at  least  logically  consistent  in  not  doing  so. 


Man.  2  7 

reared  its  doctrine  of  salvation  by  means  of 
the  Church  and  the  Sacraments,  apart  from 
which  man  must  be  left  to  the  ''uncovenanted 
mercies"  of  God. 

The  view  of  man  implicity  and  in  his  direct 
teaching  recognized  by  Christ,  and  afterward 
for  many  years  common  in  the  Church,  was  the 
simplest  and  most  natural  that  can  be  held. 
Jesus  had  no  theories  of  total  depravity,  and 
predestination,  of  substitutionary  atonement, 
and  justification  by  faith,  or  deliverance  from 
God's  wrath  by  means  of  the  Church  and  the 
Sacraments.  He  taught  that  in  his  deepest  na- 
ture man  is  always  the  child  of  God,  yet  always 
needing  light  on  his  half-perceived  relationship 
to  his  Father,  always  needing  to  have  the 
springs  of  his  soul  purified,  to  have  the  way  of 
duty  made  plainer  to  him,  his  moral  obligations 
pointed  out,  his  conscience  touched  and  quick- 
ened ;  in  short,  needing  an  education  no  teacher 
less  perfectly  at  home  with  truth  than  Christ 
himself  can  give  him.  His  parable  of  the  Prod- 
igal Son  is  an  epitome  of  His  Gospel,  and  in 
that  the  misguided  and  wandering  sons  of  men 
are  represented  as  living  in  a  far  country  in 
moral  filth  and  degradation,   yet  never  for   a 


28  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

moment  less  truly  sons  of  God  than  if  theywere 
living  in  the  Father's  house  of  truth  and  purity. 

It  is  true  He  gave  the  world  the  important 
lesson  of  the  new  birth,  but  that  meant  the 
awakening  within  men  of  the  deepest  instincts 
and  emotions,  the  opening  of  their  eyes  to  see 
the  beauty  of  divine  truth  and  life  as  it  was 
natural  for  them  to  see  it.  He  sometimes 
spoke  to  people  as  every  moral  reformer  has 
felt  it  necessary  to  speak,  as  if  the  world  and 
sin  had  taken  entire  possession  of  them  ;  and 
yet  He  knew  that  if  righteousness  was  not 
deeper  in  them  than  sin,  sense  of  God  stronger 
than  atheism,  it  was  impossible  that  they  could 
be  moved  by  His  exhortations.  He  assumed 
in  His  hearers  a  true  and  proper  sense  of  divine 
things,  a  natural  power  to  discriminate  between 
the  things  that  were  for  the  soul's  health  and 
those  which  wrought  in  it  decay  and  death. 

When  He  called  His  first  disciples  from  their 
fishing-boats  or  places  of  business,  he  did  not 
tell  them,  in  the  Calvinistic  way,  that  they 
must  be  regenerated  and  consciously  converted 
before  they  could  become  His  disciples,  nor  did 
He  ever  teach  them  that  Baptism  created  men 
children  of  God.     He  treated  them  simply  as 


Man.  29 

any  true  elder  brother  would  treat  his  needy 
and  dependent  younger  brothers,  bade  them  go 
with  Him,  and  let  Him  teach  them  about  His 
Father,  who  was  also  just  as  truly  theirs. 

For  a  good  while  after  Christ's  death,  the 
Church,  in  a  simple,  undogmatic  way,  held  that 
simplest  view  of  man's  relation  to  God.  Its 
teachers  believed  in  the  ideal  nature  of  man,  as 
well  as  the  dark  and  sinful  nature,  the  divine 
element  as  well  as  the  human  within  him. 
They  often  quoted  that  passage  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  which  declares  that  man 
was  created  "  in  the  image  of  God,"  and  they 
understood  by  that,  and  by  that  other  passage, 
in  which  God  is  said  to  *'  have  breathed  into 
man's  nostrils  the  breath  of  life,"  that  the  soul 
has  God's  own  life  in  it.  It  was  only  very 
slowly  that  the  notion,  that  man  by  nature  is 
utterly  separated  from  God  and  lost  to  right- 
eousness, came  to  prevail,  and  we  can  trace  the 
steps  by  which,  under  the  influence  of  the 
great  Augustine,  it  finally  came  to  overshadow 
the  fresher  and  simpler  teaching  of  Christ  and 
the  early  Apostles  and  the  Greek  fathers  of  the 
Church. 

Its  origin  is  to  be  sought  in  an  exaggerated 


30  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

feeling  of  human  sinfulness,  and  in  a  growing 
belief  in  the  importance  of  the  visible  Catholic 
Church  in  mediating  between  God  and  human- 
ity. The  earlier  theology  said :  There  is  no 
doubt  that  we  are  sinful,  but  the  very  fact  that 
we  know  and  feel  our  sinfulness,  shows  that 
there  is  a  deeper  and  better  self  in  us  which 
allies  us  to  Him  who  is  the  Source  of  all  good. 
We  are  not  utterly  gone  from  righteousness 
any  more  than  we  are  perfectly  true  to  God. 
We  inherit  propensities  to  sin,  and  weaknesses 
of  will  that  keep  us  from  always  doing  right, 
but  all  our  lives  we  never  lose  the  conviction 
that  our  actual  welfare  is  not  furthered  by  doing 
wrong,  nor  that  we  are  untrue  to  ourselves 
when  we  disobey  the  least  of  God's  commands. 
And  these  commands  of  God  embrace  whatso- 
ever conscience,  instructed  by  reason,  whispers 
within  us  that  we  should  or  should  not  do. 

For  confirmation  of  the  Augustinian  doctrine 
of  total  depravity,  theologians  of  the  Latin 
Church  repeatedly  turned  to  the  allegorical 
story  in  Genesis  of  the  temptation  and  fall, 
and  taking  it  for  literal  history,  traced  all  hu- 
man sin  to  Adam,  and  made  many  strange  as- 
sertions of  the  impHcation  of  all  men  in  their 


Alan,  3 1 

great  forefather's  guilt.  Thus  was  shaped  the 
dogma  that  still  haunts  the  Church,  and  pro- 
duces confusion  in  many  thoughtful  minds  who 
see  it  lurking  like  a  dark  shadow  behind  the 
devotional  words  of  certain  parts  of  the  Prayer 
Book,  the  dogma  of  original  sin.  "  It  was  un- 
known," says  Dr.  Allen,  *'  to  Greek  theology, 
as  well  as  an  innovation  also  in  Latin  thought, 
though  it  had  been  vaguely  broached  by  Ter- 
tullian  and  Cyprian,  and  intimations  looking 
toward  it  are  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of 
Ambrose."  And  it  led,  both  in  its  formation 
and  after  its  irony  had  fully  entered  into  west- 
ern thought,  'to  many  bitter  discussions  and 
strifes  that  seem  all  the  sadder  when  we  re- 
member Christ's  simple  teaching  concerning 
man.  With  it  is  connected  the  view,  once  so 
common,  but  now  generally  discarded,  that  by 
the  fall  of  Adam,  death  and  all  the  sicknesses 
and  minor  ills  that  necessarily  belong  to  man's 
lot  were  brought  about.  In  it  are  involved 
many  dark  and  dreary  thoughts  of  God  and  the 
future,  and  by  it  the  problem  of  evil,  always 
insoluble,  yet  not  so  strange,  if  we  regard  the 
human  race  as  slowly  but  steadily  developing, 
intellectually  and  morally,  from  the  beginning, 


32  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

is  unnecessarily  complicated.  To  this  doctrine, 
and  the  men  whose  minds  it  most  strongly  in- 
fluenced, rather  than  to  any,  however  oriental 
figurative  language  of  the  New  testament,  is 
chiefly  to  be  traced  the  mediseval,  Miltonic 
doctrine  of  everlasting  punishment,  a  doctrine 
that  once  at  least  in  the  Prayer  Book  seems  to 
find  expression,  where  in  the  Litany  we  pray 
to  be  delivered  from  everlasting  damnation  ; 
the  words,  however,  having  for  us  a  deep 
spiritual  truth  and  meaning. 

How,  then,  in  these  modern  days,  when  men 
are  trying  to  look  at  all  questions  as  the  Chris- 
tian thinkers  of  Alexandria  did — fairly  and  in 
the  light  of  reason, — shall  we  define  for  our- 
selves the  doctrine  of  man's  spiritual  nature? 

An  old  seventeenth  century  divine  of  our 
Church,  Benjamin  Whichcote,  used  to  quote, 
very  often,  as  expressing  what  he  regarded  as 
the  true  view  of  Biblical  teaching  and  the  view 
of  reason,  concerning  man,  those  Avords  from 
the  Proverbs,  "  The  spirit  of  man  is  the  candle 
of  the  Lord,"  thus  affirming  all  that  the  best 
thinkers  of  the  Church  before  Augustine  had  be- 
lieved and  taught  concerning  the  divine  relation- 
ship between  the  human  soul  and  God.     St.  Paul 


Man.  33 

speaks  feelingly  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  Ro- 
mans about  the  conflict  between  good  and  evil 
desires  that  went  on  in  him,  and  confesses, 
as  we  all  have  to  confess,  that  he  had  not  al- 
ways strength  to  do  right.  But  you  will  notice 
that  he  lays  just  as  much  stress  on  the  good 
nature  that  dwelt  in  him  as  the  bad,  that  he 
recognizes  himself  and  all  men  as  endowed  with 
the  two  natures  that  he  elsewhere  calls  the 
Adam  and  the  Christ,  the  old  man  and  the  new. 
That  struggle  of  St.  Paul's  is  the  common 
struggle  of  the  race.  The  old  man  with  his 
deeds,  that  is  the  lower,  less  perfect  nature  is 
daily  in  revolt  against  the  new  man,  the  higher 
and  holier  in  us,  of  which  Christ  is  the  type 
and  head.  And  so  we,  like  him,  are  often  made 
conscious  by  our  own  experience  of  the  great 
double  fact  of  our  natures. 

The    divine    nature   of    man    is   a    frequent 
theme  of  great  writers.     In  spite  of  this 

**  Muddy  vesture  of  decay 

That  doth  so  grossly  close  us  in," 

St.  Paul,  as  has  been  said,  recognized  in  man 
the  movement  of  righteousness  and  freedom. 
And  it  was  that  that  made  it  possible  for  him  to 


34  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

appeal  earnestly,  as  he  did,  to  the  disunited  and 
sensual  people  who  composed  the  Corinthian 
Church,  to  regard  their  bodies  as  the  temples  of 
the  Holy  Spirit.  It  was  that  he  meant  when  he 
said :  ''  But  to  us  there  is  but  one  God,  the 
Father,  of  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  in  Him^ 
Emerson  says:  "We  live  in  succession,  in 
division,  in  parts,  in  particles.  Meantime, 
within  man  is  the  soul  of  the  whole ;  the  wise 
silence  ;  the  universal  beauty,  to  which  every 
part  and  particle  is  equally  related  ;  the  eternal 
One."  *'  In  all  conversation  between  two  per- 
sons," he  says,  "  tacit  reference  is  made,  as  to  a 
third  party,  to  a  common  nature.  That  third 
party  or  common  nature  is  not  social ;  it  is  im- 
personal ;  it  is  God."  Again  he  says :  "  I  feel 
the  same  truth  how  often  in  my  trivial  conver- 
sation with  my  neighbors,  that  somewhat  higher 
in  each  overlooks  this  by-play,  and  Jove  nods 
to  Jove  from  behind  each  of  us."  And  in  Ten- 
nyson's fragment,  *'  Flower  from  the  crannied 
wall,"  where  he  says: 

"  If  I  could  know  what  you  are,  little  flower, 
Root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is," 

the  same  truth  appears. 


Man.  35 

Caird  says,  most  significantly :  "  The  very  con- 
sciousness of  our  finitude  indicates  that  we  have 
already  transcended  it.  If  we  were  wholly  finite, 
we  should  never  be  conscious  of  our  finitude. 
We  could  have  no  sense  of  imperfection,  but  for 
the  presence  in  us  of  a  standard  of  perfection." 

The  evil  in  man  is  testified  to  by  every  one, 
and  so  near  at  hand,  so  dark  and  dreadful  is  its 
presence,  that  it  is  not  strange  that  it  should 
so  often  have  obscured  the  lovelier  truth  con- 
cerning man ;  that  sin  rather  than  redemption 
should  have  been  the  starting-point  of  the  me- 
diaeval theology,  and  the  Devil  the  destroyer, 
rather  than  Christ  the  redeemer,  the  hero  of 
Calvinistic  thought. 

The  problem  of  evil  is  one  that  has  never 
been  solved  to  the  intellect,  as  evil  itself  can 
never  be  reconciled  with  the  better  self  of  man  ; 
but  the  more  truly  we  know  ourselves,  the  more 
sensible  must  we  become  of  the  imperfection 
in  even  our  best  thoughts  and  works.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  we  forget  or  refuse  to  reverence 
the  divine  light  of  human  reason,  the  eternal 
rectitude,  the  infinite  truth  in  man,  we  shall  in- 
evitably fall  into  false  and  querulous  ways  of 
thought  concerning  him. 


36  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

The  figurative  account  in  Genesis  of  the  fall 
of  man,  as  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  used  to 
be  regarded  as  literal  history.  By  that  account 
people  judged  that  man  was  created  at  first  not 
only  innocent,  but  complete  in  all  his  nature, 
and  that  in  one  moment  he  fell  from  a  state  of 
moral  grandeur  to  one  of  moral  degradation 
and  blindness.  This  fallen  nature  he  then  en- 
tailed on  his  descendants,  and  so  the  evolution 
of  the  race  has  been  downward,  not  upward. 

That  was  the  doctrine  of  the  mediaeval 
Church ;  but  in  the  light  of  many  truths  that 
history  and  science  have  revealed,  it  is  no 
longer  generally  believed.  Whether  man  has 
been  evolved  from  lower  forms  of  life  or  not, 
there  is  every  reason  to  think  that  he  has  risen 
from  a  very  low  state  of  intelligence  and 
moral  consciousness  to  his  present  condition ; 
that  in  his  whole  history,  as  in  the  universe  at 
large,  the  law  has  been,  ''  first  the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear."  We  do 
not  now  take  the  account  in  Genesis  as  literal 
history ;  we  regard  it  as  an  allegory  of  the  in- 
ward experience  of  every  man.  Men  come  into 
the  world  innocent,  as  to  actual  guilt,  but  with 
latent  capacities  for  good  and  evil  within  them. 


Man.  2>7 

As  life  goes  on,  they  eat  of  many  a  forbidden 
tree,  and  so  fall  into  sin  and  sorrow,  but,  as  in 
the  story  of  Genesis,  such  experiences  make 
them  wise  to  discern  good  from  evil,  and  per- 
haps help  them  to  a  noble  final  self-conquest. 

To  sum  up  the  doctrine  of  man  :  In  the  light 
of  the  New  Testament  and  the  best  subsequent 
Christian  thought,  we  believe  that  the  soul  of 
man  contains  divine  and  human,  infinite  and  fi- 
nite elements.  We  do  not  hold  sin  to  be  a 
light  thing,  but  we  believe  that  righteousness 
lies  deeper  in  us  than  sin  ;  that  it  is  inwrought 
with  the  fibre  of  our  being,  while  sin,  as  some 
one  has  said,  is  the  dye,  a  very  dark  and  dread- 
ful dye,  that  stains  the  fabric  of  our  life.  And 
consequently,  that,  as  Epictetus  declares,  "  If 
a  man  could  be  persuaded  of  this  principle  as 
he  ought,  he  never  would  think  of  himself 
meanly  or  ignobly." 

Some  may  question  whether  this  teaching  is 
in  harmony  with  that  of  the  Prayer  Book,  but 
the  teaching  of  the  Prayer  Book,  like  that  of 
the  Bible,  is  to  be  discovered  rather  in  its  gen- 
eral spirit  than  from  isolated  words  or  phrases. 
We  must  remember  how  simply  and  confidently 
the  Prayer  Book  puts  the  Church's  prayers  into 


38  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

the  mouths  of  all  men  and  women  who  will  use 
them,  assured  that  they  express  the  deepest  de- 
sires, the  purest  emotions  of  all  human  souls. 

The  system  of  the  historic  Church  is  one 
of  rational  religious  education.  She  takes  peo- 
ple in  childhood,  because  they  are  children  of 
God,  baptizes  them,  teaches  them  to  pray,  con- 
firms them,  and  makes  them,  if  they  will  be, 
participants  in  all  her  life  and  worship,  the  very 
fundamental  principle  of  her  system  being  the 
double  nature  of  man.  The  whole  aim  and  end 
of  her  education  is  not  to  save  men  from  the 
wrath  of  an  offended  Deity  remote  from  them, 
but  to  bring  into  complete  harmony  within  them 
the  two  natures  now  so  often  in  fierce  and  bit- 
ter conflict.  Looking  beyond  this  world,  she 
prophesies  of  worlds  where  we  may  grow  more 
freely  in  light  and  knowledge,  where  seeing 
truth  no  longer  darkly,  but  with  clear  vision,  we 
shall  love  and  follow  it,  and  where,  no  longer 
torn  by  conflicting  desires, 

*'  Mind  and  soul  according  well, 


May  make  one  music  as  before, 
But  vaster !  " 


CHRIST. 


39 


"The  incarnation  was  Msiorica/Iy  accom-plished  in  Jesus 
Christ,  who  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  suffered  under 
Pontius  Pilate. 

"  The  inward  Christ  of  the  heart  (of  the  Church  and  of  each 
believer)  presupposes  the  Christ  manifested  in  history,  and 
without  the  latter  soon  fades  away  into  a  mystic  cloud." — 
Martensen. 

"  The  Council  of  Nicsea,  which  declared  the  union  of  God 
with  man,  is  one  of  the  most  important  assemblies  that  was 
ever  convened  on  this  earth  ;  it  dates  a  new  era  in  the  his- 
tory of  human  thought.  God  in  actual  contact  with  man — 
God  in  man  and  man  in  God — is  the  underlying  idea  of  the 
Athanasian  dogma,  which  asserts  that  the  Son  is  consubstan- 
tial  with  the  Father."— Dr.  F.  H.  Hedge,  "Ways  of  the 
Spirit,"  p.  352. 

"  Passing  from  India  to  Persia,  and  thence  to  Greece, 
where  in  the  hands  of  Plato  it  was  made  much  of,  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Logos  became  the  prominent  feature  of  the 
famous  Neoplatonic  school  of  Alexandria." — "  Keys  of  the 
Creeds." 

"The  difference  between  the  prophets  and  Jesus  was,  that 
he  accomplished  what  they  foresaw.  His  life  full  of  faith  in 
God  and  man,  became  the  new  seed  of  a  higher  kingdom 
than  that  of  David.  He  was  the  Son  of  David,  as  inheriting 
the  loving  trust  of  David  in  a  heavenly  Father  ;  he  was  also 
the  Lord  of  David,  by  fulfilling  David's  love  to  God  with  his 
own  love  to  man  ;  making  piety  and  charity  one,  faith  and 
freedom  one,  reason  and  religion  one,  this  life  and  the  life  to 
come  one.  He  died  to  accomplish  this  union  and  to  make 
this  atoning  sacrifice." — James  Freeman  Clarke. 

"  The  revelation  of  and  in  the  Christ  is  not  a  religion,  and 
it  is  not  a  philosophy. 

"  The  Christ  does  not  come  into  the  world  as  the  founder 
of  a  religion,  and  this  revelation  is  not  set  forth  as  an  insti- 


40 


tute,  or  a  system,  or  a  cultus  of  religion. — Mulford,  "  Re- 
public of  God." 

"  It  is  rather  His  assumption  of  our  nature  in  all  its  fulness, 
than  his  death  alone,  that  the  Fathers  dwelt  upon.  He  is  the 
representative  man,  the  second  Adam,  the  head  of  the  body, 
who  recapitulates  in  Himself,  as  they  are  fond  of  expressing 
it,  the  whole  human  race,  and  imparts  to  them — a  new  prin- 
ciple of  life,  in  whose  death  all  die,  in  whose  resurrection  all 
are  made  alive.  This  is  the  great  argument  of  Athanasius." 
— OXENHAM,  "  The  Atonement." 

"To  believe  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  to  believe  that  no 
other  approach  to  God  exists,  except  through  the  same  quali- 
ties of  justice,  truth,  and  love  which  make  up  the  mind  of 
Christ.  '  Ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  me,'  is  given  as 
His  own  farewell  address.  Ye  believe  in  the  Father,  ye  be- 
lieve in  Religion  generally  ;  believe  also  in  the  Son,  the 
Christ.  For  this  is  the  form  in  which  the  Divine  Nature  has 
been  made  most  palpably  known  to  the  world,  in  flesh  and 
blood,  in  facts  and  words,  in  life  and  death." — Dean  Stan- 
ley ("  Christian  Institutions  "). 

"  The  vital  principle  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  is 
self-surrender.  Christ  yielded  himself  perfectly  to  the  Divine 
Will,  and  so  became  the  world's  redeemer. 

"All  the  Fathers  agreed,  as  it  were  with  one  mind,  that 
to  Christ  belongs  not  merely  the  limited  importance  attached 
to  every  historical  personage,  but  that  his  person  stands  in  an 
essential  relation  to  the  whole  Human  Race  ;  on  this  account 
alone  could  they  make  a  Single  Individual  the  object  of  an 
article  of  faith,  and  ascribe  to  him  a  lasting  and  eternal  sig- 
nificancy  in  relation  to  our  race." — Dorner,  "Person  of 
Christ." 

' '  Christ  saves  us  by  pouring  into  us  his  own  life,  which  is 
love.  When  Christian  love  is  formed  within  us,  it  has  killed 
the  roots  of  sin  in  the  soul  and  fitted  us  to  be  forgiven,  and 
to  enter  the  presence  of  God." — James  Freeman  Clarke. 


41 


CHRIST. 

An  old  painter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Fra 
Angelico,  used  to  paint  the  head  of  Christ  on 
bended  knee,  and  with  corresponding  rever- 
ence of  mind  the  Saviour's  life  should  be 
studied. 

It  may  seem  presumptuous,  after  nearly  nine- 
teen hundred  years  of  conflicting  opinion,  to  say 
that  it  is  not  hard  to  arrive  at  true  conclusions 
about  him  ;  and  if  the  modern  student  were 
obliged  to  seek  for  his  true  character  and  re- 
lation to  mankind  amid  the  dense  mists  of 
scholastic  opinion,  or  the  strifes  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal councils,  it  would  be  impossible  to  say  it. 
The  doctrine  of  Christ's  divinity,  if  it  be  true, 
is  to  be  discovered  in  far  simpler  ways. 

Theodore  Parker  once  said :  "  Above  all 
men  do  I  bow  myself  before  that  august 
personage,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  seems  to 
have  had  the  strength  of  man  and  the  softness 
of  woman, — man's  mighty,  wide,  grasping,  rea- 

43 


44  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

soning,  calculating,  and  poetic  mind ;  and  wo- 
man's conscience,  woman's  heart,  and  woman's 
faith  in  God.  He  is  my  best  historic  ideal  of 
human  greatness."  How  much  such  a  confes- 
sion as  that  reminds  us  of  the  simple-hearted, 
yet  deep  and  ardent  love  for  him,  that  inspired 
Christ's  first  disciples  !  There  is  a  great  gulf  be- 
tween their  faith  and  admiration  and  that  of  the 
men  who  composed  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  which, 
in  the  year  325,  established  on  a  dogmatic  basis 
the  Church's  belief  in  his  divinity ;  and  this 
modern  utterance  of  one  who  loved  the  undog- 
matic  faith  of  St.  John  and  St.  Peter,  but  cared 
little  for  the  formulated  opinions  of  the  bishops 
of  the  fourth  century,  carries  us  back  to  the 
first  flush  of  the  world's  new  spiritual  day. 

Two  questions  in  this  chapter  demand  our 
attention  :  first,  the  nature  of  Christ ;  second, 
his  work. 

The  Catholic  Church,  ever  since  the  Council 
of  Nicaea,  has  persistently  declared  her  belief  in 
the  double  nature  of  Christ.  It  was  the  denial 
of  his  divinity  by  the  Arians  that  led  to  the 
Nicene  Council,  whose  stormy  vote  decided 
that  henceforth  the  Church  should  hold  and 
teach  the  doctrine  of  his  double  nature.     After 


Christ.  45 

that  council  other  sects  arose  denying  his  com- 
plete humanity,  and  although  the  echo  of  all 
such  strifes  has  long  since  died  away,  many 
people  are  still  in  doubt  whether  Christ  was 
both  God  and  man.  Can  that  question  be  set- 
tled rationally  and  beyond  the  sphere  of  mere 
theological  assertion  ?  Let  us  see.  The  Chris- 
tian world  to-day  contains  but  two  leading 
forms  of  statement  concerning  Christ's  nature: 
that  of  the  Catholic  Church,  to  which  we  have 
referred ;  and  that  of  the  Unitarians,  which  is, 
in  general,  an  assertion  simply  of  his  human 
nature.  And  in  many  minds  there  is  an  im- 
pression that  the  separation  between  the  beliefs 
indicated  by  these  two  forms  of  statement,  is 
as  wide  and  deep  as  that  between  the  beliefs  of 
the  Church  and  the  Arians  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury. This  is  not  always  true.  The  early 
Arians  were  people  influenced  by  the  current 
teaching  of  the  East  concerning  God.  Arius 
himself  was  bred,  not  in  the  Christian  school  of 
Alexandria,  but  in  that  of  Antioch,  a  school 
tinctured  with  the  Oriental  view  of  God  as  re- 
mote from  His  universe  and  acting  upon  it 
only  by  means  of  intermediate  agencies.  In 
the  Oriental  view  there  was  no  point  of  contact 


46  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

between  God  and  the  universe  ;  such  a  thought 
as  that  He  was  the  indwelHng  life  of  nature  and 
the  personahty  of  man,  never  for  a  moment 
entered  into  it.  They  had  discovered  no 
natural  tie  between  the  human  and  the  divine, 
and  so  the  idea  of  the  perfect  incarnation  of 
God  in  Christ,  to  which  the  Alexandrian  view 
of  God  as  incarnate  in  all  men  logically  and 
quickly  led  the  Church,  was  impossible  for  the 
Arian  mind  to  grasp.  Thus  the  early  strife 
concerning  Christ's  divinity  was,  in  reality,  a 
strife  about  the  more  fundamental  doctrine 
of  the  nature  of  God.  The  Alexandrian  theo- 
logians regarded  God  as  immediately  present 
in  His  universe,  not  in  the  uncommunicable- 
ness  and  entire  profoundness  of  His  nature 
and  power,  but  as  the  logos  or  reason  in  which 
every  human  being  shared.  He  did  not  exist 
in  solitary  greatness,  but  in  complex  and  beau- 
tiful relationships.  Reason  in  the  intellect  and 
goodness  in  the  soul  of  man  both  testified  to 
His  abiding  presence  in  the  race.  And  when 
**  The  Word  became  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us, 
full  of  grace  and  truth,"  it  was  only  in  pursu- 
ance of  the  regular  manifestation  or  revelation 
of  Deity.     God   and  man   had    never   existed 


Christ.  47 

apart,  one  "  in  heaven,"  the  other  "  on  the 
earth,"  except  in  figurative  language,  used  to 
portray  the  respective  greatness  and  Httleness 
of  divine  and  human  attributes.  Christ  was 
the  perfect  type  or  head  of  the  visible  incarna- 
tion of  God,  the  highest  point  in  the  divine 
communication  to  the  intellect  and  heart  of 
man.  In  him  was  that  perfect  union  of  divine 
and  human  of  which  the  constitution  of  the 
world  and  man  had  always  been  prophesying. 
"  He  was  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man  that 
Cometh  into  the  world."  He  had  not  alone 
the  divine  nature,  else  he  would  have  been 
like  those  mythical  gods  whom  the  Orientals 
conceived  of  as  sometimes  walking  the  earth 
in  human  guise,  and  so  would  have  taken  the 
world  back  to  heathen  polytheism.  He  had 
not  alone  the  human  nature,  else  his  appear- 
ance in  the  world  would  have  destroyed  the  es- 
sential principle  on  which  all  true  philosophy 
of  the  relations  between  God  and  humanity  is 
based.  He  calls  himself  both  Son  of  God  and 
Son  of  man.  He  tells  the  Jews  that  no  sign 
shall  be  given  them  but  the  sign  of  the  Son  of 
man;  that  is,  that  he  had  come  to  establish 
truth,  not  by  means  of  "  portent  and  prodigy," 


48  Heart  of  the  C^^eeds. 

but  by  means  of  revelation  in  a  person ;  that 
his  mission  was  to  declare  the  eternal,  inde- 
structible relationship  between  God  and  man. 

In  tracing  the  doctrine  of  God  we  have  al- 
ready seen  how,  after  Augustine's  time,  the 
Oriental  view  of  God  as  existing  apart  from  the 
world,  an  awful  remoteness,  came  to  be  gen- 
erally held  in  the  Western  Church ;  and  it 
thus  becomes  most  clear  that  the  doctrine  of 
Christ's  divinity  would  necessarily  appear  in 
the  later  theology,  under  an  entirely  different 
aspect. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  doctrine  of  the  in- 
carnation, rich  and  beautiful  in  the  Alexandrian 
theology,  did  harden  soon  into  a  cold  and  re- 
pulsive dogma  closely  allied  to  the  older  beliefs 
of  the  heathen  in  the  appearance  of  gods  on 
earth,  the  fruitful  source  of  strife  and  division 
and  cruel  persecution  in  the  Church.  In  the 
Western  Church,  Christ  was  not  the  perfect 
type  of  creation,  the  complete  embodiment 
of  the  divine  principle  in  man,  the  head- 
stone in  the  temple  of  God's  Incarnate  Life, 
into  which  all  are  builded,  but  rather  a  myste- 
rious being,  who  came  to  earth  to  declare  judg- 
ment, and  to  ward  off  dreadful  punishment  from 


Christ,  49 

a  portion  of  the  race  by  offering  his  body  as  a 
Hteral  sacrifice  to  offended  Deity. 

This,  briefly  stated,  is  the  doctrine  of  Christ 
that  Calvinism  has  handed  down  to  us,  and  who 
can  describe  the  painful  struggles  of  mind  it  pro- 
duced, age  after  age,  among  those  who  more  or 
less  clearly  perceived  that  it  could  not  be  har- 
monized with  reason  or  the  better  instincts  of 
the  soul  ?  Turn  whichever  way  they  would,  in 
the  direction  of  a  natural  and  reasonable  faith, 
they  were  confronted  with  such  passages  as : 
^'Neither  is  there  salvation  in  any  other;  for 
there  is  none  other  name  under  heaven  given 
among  men  whereby  we  must  be  saved." 
"  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  eternal 
life,  and  he  that  believeth  not  the  Son  of  God 
shall  not  see  life."  And  they  said:  "If  in  these 
passages  Christ,  or  the  Son  of  God,  means  simply 
the  historic  Christ,  the  divine  man  of  Palestine, 
how  can  salvation  be  justly  limited  to  behef  in 
him,  since  millions  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth,  before  he  lived  and  since,  never  heard 
nor  could  have  known  of  him  ?  And  what 
does  belief  in  him  mean  ?  Can  it  mean  merely 
some  particular  belief  about  him  formed  in  the 
mind,  or  submission  to  the  laws  and  institu- 


50  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

tions  of  the  Christian  Church?"  These  were 
questions  to  which  the  Mediaeval  and  post- 
Reformation  churches  of  Europe  could  give  no 
answer  satisfactory  to  thoughtful  minds.  It  was 
clear  that  salvation,  whatever  it  meant,  could  not 
reasonably  have  been  made  dependent  on  the 
opinions  people  held  about  Christ,  nor  on  the 
administration  of  the  external  rite  of  baptism. 
There  was  always  a  lurking  conviction  that  God 
could  be  just  to  man  only  by  making  well-being 
or  ill-being  depend  on  something  man  could  do 
or  refrain  from  doing,  something  that  took  far 
deeper  hold  on  the  roots  of  life  than  mere 
speculation  concerning  Christ,  or  an  uncertain 
state  of  the  emotions  connected  with  that,  or 
on  baptism  or  the  Lord's  Supper.  What,  then, 
was  the  true  belief  in  Christ  that  was  so  neces- 
sary to  man  ?  The  answer  would  have  been 
found,  had  people  looked  for  it,  in  the  writings 
of  some  of  the  most  orthodox  of  the  Apos- 
tolic and  Church  Fathers. 

Justin  Martyr's  plain  declaration  was  that 
*'  Christ  is  the  Word  of  whom  the  whole  human 
race  are  partakers  "  ;  that  "  those  who  lived 
according  to  reason  "  were  Christians,  ''  though 
accounted  atheists,"  even  as  those  who  "  lived 


Christ,  5 1 

without  reason  were  enemies  "  to  Christ ;   and 
that  each  man  of  the  heathen  writers  ''  spoke 
well  in  proportion  to  the  share  he  had  "  of  the 
Word  of  God  in  him.     Clement  of  Alexandria 
had  said  :  "  The  Son  of  God  is  never  displaced  ; 
not  being  divided,    not    severed,    not   passing 
from  place  to  place  ;  being  ahvays  everywhere, 
and  being  contained  nowhere ;    complete    mmd 
the  complete  paternal  light ;    the  teacher  who 
trains  the  Gnostic  by  mysteries,  and   the  be- 
liever by  good  hopes,  and  the  hard  of  heart  by 
corrective  discipline."     "  Christ  is  called  Wis- 
dom  by   the   prophets.      This    is    he    who    is 
the  teacher   of   all  created  beings   the   fellow- 
counsellor  of  God,  who  foreknew  all  things." 
*'  There  was  always  a  natural  manifestation  of 
the  One  Almighty  God  among  all  right-thinking 
men."     "  He  whom  we  call  Saviour  and  Lord 
gave   philosophy  to  the  Greeks.     He  has  dis- 
pensed   his   beneficence   both    to    Greeks   and 
Barbarians."     "  For  the  image  of  God  is  His 
Word,  the  genuine  Son  of  Mind,  the  Divine 
Word,  the  archetypal  light  of  light." 

Origen  had  said :  "  Christ  has  given  light 
and  taught  the  way  of  piety  to  the  whole 
human   race,   so    that    no    one    can    reproach 


52  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

him  if  he  remain  without  a  share  of  his  mys- 
teries." 

This  was  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  Christ,  in 
the  most  enUghtened  portion  of  the  Christian 
Church,  before  the  time  of  Augustine  ;  and  it 
is  this  to  which  the  Church  in  our  day  is  re- 
turning. In  the  largest  sense  Christ  is  the 
divine  Word  or  reason  or  wisdom  of  God, 
manifest  in  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
and  most  perfectly  in  the  nature  of  man.  He 
is  that  of  God  which  we  can  comprehend,  and 
by  means  of  which  we  stand  forever  related  to 
the  unrevealed  mystery  of  the  Divine  Nature. 
He  is  indeed  the  Mediator  between  God  and 
man,  not,  however,  as  trying  to  win  God  over 
to  our  side,  but  as  in  his  nature  "  the  eternal 
logos  of  the  world  through  whom  the  divine 
light  shines  into  creation  "  ;  ''  the  ground  and 
source  of  all  reason  in  creation,  be  it  in  men  or 
angels,  in  Greek  or  Jew."  ' 

From  such  statements  as  these  we  shall  at 
once  see  the  necessity  for  the  modern  distinc- 
tion between  the  essential  2.^6.  the  historic  Christ. 
The  historic  Christ,  the  God-man  of  Palestine, 
who   was   born   of  the    Virgin   Mary,   suffered 

^  Martensen. 


Christ,  5  3 

under  Pontius  Pilate^  was  crucified  dead  and 
buried,  and  rose  again  from  the  dead,  was  the 
perfect  manifestation  of  the  essential  Christ 
incarnate  from  the  beginning  of  the  world. 
"  Christ  lives  in  the  heart  of  the  Church  and  of 
each  believer,"  says  Martensen,  ''  but  the  in- 
ward Christ  of  the  heart  presupposes  the  Christ 
manifested  in  history,  and  without  the  latter 
soon  fades  away  into  a  mystic  cloud." 

It  would  hardly  be  profitable  to  discuss,  at 
length,  the  various  theories  that  have  been  held 
in  explanation  or  definition  of  the  work  of 
Christ. 

Most  of  the  theological  treatises  with  which 
people  are  familiar,  and  many  of  the  pul- 
pits, teach  an  erroneous  doctrine  of  what  is 
called  *'  substitutionary  atonement,"  and  it  is 
this  principle  of  substitution  or  quid  pro  quo, 
that  enters  into  most  of  the  mediaeval  and  re- 
formed theories  of  the  work  of  Christ. 

For  man's  sin,  those  theories  declared,  justice 
demanded  satisfaction  ;  outraged  law  must 
be  vindicated  ;  God's  wrath  must  be  appeased. 
Yet  Infinite  Love  could  save  the  victims,  if  it 
would  yield  itself  to  that  which  would,  other- 
wise, relentlessly  fall  upon  them.     So  love  and 


54  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

justice  met  in  conference,  and  bargained  that 
love,  in  the  person  of  Christ,  should  come  to 
earth  and  submit  itself  to  the  pains  of  physical 
death,  in  order  to  pay  man's  ransom. 

No  form  of  this  substitution  doctrine  could 
possibly  satisfy  the  minds  of  the  best  thinkers. 
The  human  reason  revolted  at  the  grotesque 
spectacle  of  a  God  at  war  with  Himself,  de- 
manding man's  utter  ruin,  yet  willing  to  be 
pacified  if  some  victim  could  be  found  to  take 
the  offender's  place,  and  so  bargaining  with 
Himself,  or  with  the  devil,  for  men's  salvation. 
And  the  question  kept  recurring  how  spiritual 
wrong  could  be  atoned  by  physical  suffering  or, 
as  in  heathen  sacrifices,  by  the  mere  shedding 
of  blood  ?  Or  how  the  sufferings  of  Christ  for 
a  few  brief  hours  could,  by  any  possibility,  be 
regarded  as  an  equivalent  for  unending  ages  of 
torture  too  dreadful  to  be  imagined,  for  the 
whole  race,  in  the  life  to  come  ?  Yet  this,  in 
one  form  or  another,  was  the  doctrine  that  was 
almost  universally  preached  and  professedly 
believed  in  New  England  until  about  half  a 
century  ago,  when  a  large  body  of  thinking 
men,  under  the  name  of  Unitarians,  rose  in  re- 
volt against  it  and  the  popular  crude  and  un- 


Christ.  5  5 

philosophical  doctrines  of  Trinity,  Divinity  of 
Christ,  and  Heaven  and  hell  connected  with  it. 

After  what  has  been  said  concerning  the  be- 
lief of  the  early  Church  about  Christ's  nature, 
it  will  not  be  necessary  to  show  how  far  re- 
moved from  early  Christian  thought  this  view 
of  the  atonement  was.  The  New  Testament 
writers,  full  of  enthusiasm  over  their  Lord  and 
his  divine  work,  seized  all  the  strongest  figures 
they  were  familiar  with,  in  order  to  express 
what  they  felt  of  the  value  of  his  life  and 
death,  but  they  held  no  dogmatic  theories  of 
the  sacrifice  of  the  Son  of  God,  least  of  all 
such  theories  as  were  imposed  upon  the  Church 
in  later  ages  by  the  Augustinian  theology. 

Nor  among  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  in 
the  third  and  fourth  centuries,  can  there  be  said 
to  have  been  any  well-defined  doctrine  of 
atonement,  while,  indeed,  all  believed  pro- 
foundly in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  and  spoke 
rhetorically  of  his  life  and  death  as  having 
been  for  man's  redemption. 

We  believe  that  Christ  redeemed  the  world, 
not  by  suffering  a  penalty  that  except  for 
him  man  must  have  borne,  but  first,  by  re- 
vealing, in   his  own  divine-human  nature,  the 


56  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

fact  of  God's  enshrinement  in  the  universe 
and  the  soul  of  man  ;  and  second,  by  realiz- 
ing in  history,  once  for  all,  the  perfect  union 
of  divine  and  human,  and  so  the  ideal,  that 
man  had  long  been  struggHng  for  and  hop- 
ing to  see  realized,  of  perfect  life.  The  death 
from  which  he  saved  man  was  the  spiritual 
blight  of  sordidness  and  sensuality  and  false 
beliefs.  The  salvation  he  wrought  was  the 
*'  liberation  of  the  God  consciousness  "  in 
men  from  the  slavery  to  sense  in  which  it  is 
so  greatly  held.  The  sacrifice  of  the  cross 
not  only  typifies,  but  is  the  great  tide-mark  of 
that  eternal  sacrifice  of  the  lower  to  the  higher 
through  which  the  universe  and  the  soul  of 
man  struggle  ever  upward  toward  perfection. 

The  word  salvation  is  as  often  on  our  lips  to- 
day as  ever,  but  we  mean  now,  by  salvation, 
not  deliverance  from  fiery  tortures  in  the  life 
to  come,  but  the  gradually  increasing  perfec- 
tion of  our  natures  in  all  worlds  where  we  may 
be.  We  speak  of  the  atonement  of  Christ, 
but  we  mean  by  that,  not  the  satisfying  of  an 
offended  deity  by  a  dreadful  offering  of  human 
blood,  but  the  revelation  of  the  light  and  free- 
dom of  the  obedient  soul,  which  came  through 


CJirist,  5  7 

Christ.  The  redemption  of  the  worid,  we  be- 
lieve, lies  in  the  truth  that ''  in  him  was  life,  and 
the  life  was  the  light  of  men."  That  ""  the  Word 
became  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us  (and  we  be- 
held his  glory,  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten 
from  the  Father),  full  of  grace  and  truth." 
Thus  we  believe  in  Christ,  not  as  man,  but  as 
God-Ma7i,  head  and  type  of  creation,  eldest 
brother  of  all  the  great  family  of  mankind  to 
whom  God  has  imparted  Himself,  liberator  of 
the  human  soul,  redeemer  of  the  race  from  sin. 
We  hold  that  in  his  divinity  every  one,  how- 
ever defective  his  philosophy  may  be,  who, 
loving  reason  and  goodness  and  faith,  seeks  the 
liberation  of  his  own  soul  from  sin,  truly  be- 
lieves. 

The  obstacle  to  a  frank  avowal  of  belief  in 
the  divinity,  or  deity,  of  Christ  has  always 
been  a  mistaken  conception  of  God.  The  best 
thinkers  have  never  personified  God  as  a  great 
man  and  localized  Him  in  the  distant  heavens. 
To  them  God  has  been  ever  present  in  His 
children  and  His  v/orks,  and  they  have  had  no 
difficulty  in  thinking  of  Him  as  manifesting 
Himself  preeminently  in  Jesus.  We  love  and 
admire  the  flowers  in  our  gardens,  and  feel  that 


58  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

they  all  reveal  somewhat  of  that  wondrous  per- 
fection of  beauty  that  exists  in  God.  But  when 
one  more  rare  and  beautiful  than  the  others 
unfolds  its  petals  and  spreads  its  perfumes 
lavishly  abroad,  we  feel  almost  like  worshipping 
that  as  a  complete  revelation  of  Infinite  Beauty. 
When  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
calls  Christ  *'  the  brightness  of  God's  glory,  and 
the  express  image  of  His  person,"  or  when  St. 
Paul  says  that  "  he  is  the  image  of  the  invisible 
God,"  and  that  *'  it  pleased  the  Father  that  in 
him  should  all  fulness  dwell,"  we  have  a  similar 
exhibition  of  feeling.  It  was  not  Christ  in  his 
single  personality  that  kindled  the  fervid  apos- 
tolic imagination  to  so  a  bright  a  glow,  but 
rather  Christ  as  "  unveiling  God  in  the  world 
and  in  the  consciousness  of  man,"  Christ  in  his 
union  with  other  men,  of  whom  St.  Paul  had 
elsewhere  said  (i  Cor.  xi.,  7)  that  they  were 
"  the  image  and  glory  of  God." 

On  summer  mornings  as  we  watch  the  sun 
rise  out  of  gold  and  crimson  seas  and  mount 
proudly  upward  into  the  heavens  ''  trailing 
clouds  of  glory  as  he  comes,"  we  understand 
how  Tennyson  could  write,  "  God  made  himself 
an  awful  rose  of  dawn,"  for  it  seems  to  us  that 


Christ,  59 

He  has  wholly  incarnated  himself  in  that  glorious 
vision.  Lost  in  contemplation  of  the  divine 
man  who  reveals  to  men  not  only  their  duty 
and  destiny,  but,  in  his  oneness  with  them,  their 
divine  relationship,  how  natural  to  feel  that  he 
is  the  image  and  glory  of  God.  As  we  stand 
face  to  face  with  him,  how  can  we  better  express 
our  belief  in  the  one  perfect  human  char- 
acter, the  man  who  alone  of  all  men  could 
truthfully  say  as  he  looked  into  his  inner  life, 
There  is  no  shadow  of  evil  on  my  soul,  than  to 
repeat  his  own  words :  "  I  and  my  Father  are 
one. 

In  confessing  our  belief  in  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ,  the  Lamb  slam  from  the  foundation  of  the 
worlds  we  are  confessing  belief  in  the  subordi- 
nation of  the  lower  to  the  higher,  the  universal 
sacrifice  once  historically,  sublimely,  and  fully 
witnessed  in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  in  Pal- 
estine. 

Thus  there  are  to-day  many  who  piously 
repeat  the  Nicene  Creed  who,  judged  by  the 
standard  of  the  oldest  and  truest  orthodoxy  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  are  farthest  from  belief  in 
the  divinity  of  our  Lord  ;  while  there  are  many 
who  never  say  the  Creeds  who,  at  heart,  are  the 


6o  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

strongest  believers  in  the  fact.  A  clergyman  of 
the  English  Church  once  quaintly  said  :  "  Divine 
truth  is  better  understood,  as  it  unfolds  itself 
in  the  purity  of  men's  hearts  and  lives,  than  in 
all  those  subtle  niceties  into  which  curious  wits 
may  lay  it  forth  " ;  and  there  is  the  echo  of  the 
Master's  own  spirit  in  Whittier's  lines : 

"  Call  him  not  heretic  whose  works  attest 
His  faith  in  goodness  by  no  creed  confessed. 
Whatever  in  love's  name  is  truly  done 
To  free  the  bound  and  lift  the  fallen  one 
Is  done  in  Christ.     Whoso,  in  deed  and  word, 
Is  not  against  him,  labors  for  our  Lord. 
When  he  who,  sad  and  weary,  longing  sore 
For  love's  sweet  service,  sought  the  sisters'  door, 
One  saw  the  heavenly,  one  the  human  guest. 
But  who  shall  say  which  loved  the  Master  best  ?  " 


THE  CREEDS. 


6i 


"  As  the  name  of  the  Father  represents  to  us  God  in  nature, 
as  the  name  of  the  Son  represents  to  us  God  in  history  ;  so 
the  name  of  the  Holy  Ghost  represents  to  us  God  in  our  own 
hearts  and  spirits  and  consciences.  This  is  the  still,  small 
voice — stillest  and  smallest,  yet  loudest  and  strongest  of  all — 
which,  even  more  than  the  wonders  of  nature  or  the  wonders 
of  history,  brings  us  into  the  nearest  harmony  with  Him  who 
is  a  Spirit, — who,  when  His  closest  communion  with  man  is 
described,  can  only  be  described  as  the  Spirit  pleading  with, 
and  dwelling  in,  our  spirit." — Dean  Stanley,  "Christian 
Institutions." 

"Christianity,  though  a  monotheism,  and  a  monotheism 
which  has  destroyed  forever  both  polytheism  and  idolatry 
wherever  it  has  gone,  is  not  that  of  numerical  unity.  The 
God  of  Christianity  differs  in  this  from  the  God  of  Judaism 
and  Mohammedanism.  He  is  an  infinite  will  ;  but  he  is 
more.  Christianity  cognizes  God  as  not  only  above  nature 
and  the  soul,  but  also  as  in  nature  and  in  the  soul. 

"He  is  an  omnipresent  will  as  the  Father,  Creator,  and 
Ruler  of  all  things.  He  is  the  Word,  or  manifested  Truth  in 
the  Son,  manifested  through  all  nature,  manifested  through 
all  human  life.  He  is  the  Spirit  or  inspiration  of  each  indi- 
vidual soul.  So  he  is  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  above  all, 
through  all,  and  in  us  all." — James  Freeman  Clarke. 

"  In  the  Apostolic  Creed  we  breathe  the  atmosphere  of 
fact  rather  than  of  doctrine,  and  surely  if  its  witness  is  accept- 
ed in  all  its  length  and  breadth  and  depth,  it  will  be  found  to 
be  not  only  a  rallying-point  for  all  who  love  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  sincerity,  but  also  will  supply  the  truest  and  most 


62 


powerful  corrective  for  the  errors  and  follies  of  our  times." — 
Rev.  Stanley  Leathes,  M.A. 

"In  early  Trinitarian  discussions,  we  cannot  mistake  the 
presence  of  a  yet  higher  aim, — that,  viz.,  of  bringing  to  dis- 
tinct consciousness  not  only  the  unity  of  the  divine  nature, 
but  also  the  living  longing  of  divine  love  to  impart  itself  ;  in 
other  words,  the  effort  to  maintain  both  the  trajishicent 
nature  of  God  and  his  immanence  in  his  works, — the  former  in 
opposition  to  polytheism  and  pantheism,  and  the  latter  to  an 
abstract  deism.  So  far  such  formulas  have  also  their  edifying 
side,  as  giving  witness  to  the  struggle  of  the  Christian  mind 
after  a  satisfactory  expression  of  what  has  its  full  reality  only 
in  the  depths  of  the  Christian  heart. — Hagenbach,  "  History 
of  Doctrines,"  vol.  i.,  p.  270. 

"  To  exist  in  relationship  is  the  essential  idea  of  God." — 
Prof,  A.  V.  G.  Allen,  D.D.,  "Continuity  of  Christian 
Thought." 

"  God  the  Father  is  the  ground  of  creation, 
God  the  Son  is  the  law  of  creation, 
God  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  life  of  creation. 

"  God  the  Father  originates, 
God  the  Son  regulates, 
God  the  Holy  Ghost  actuates. 

"  God  the  Father  is  Deity  invisible, 
God  the  Son  is  Deity  manifested, 
God  the  Holy  Ghost  is  Deity  communicated." 

—Rev.  H.  V.  D.  Johns,  D.D. 
(Recently  reprinted  in  the  New  York  Churchman.') 


63 


THE  CREEDS. 

Close  together  in  the  Prayer  Book  stand  two 
venerable  Creeds,  or  short  Confessions  of  Faith, 
which  are  used  interchangeably  in  public  wor- 
ship,— the  Apostles  and  the  Nicene.  These  two 
Creeds  are  always  said  to  embody  the  substance 
of  Christian  belief,  and  in  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church  there  is  no  standard  of  doctrine 
whatsoever  beside  them.  The  Church  in  England 
at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  following  the 
Reformed  Churches  of  the  Continent,  adopted 
a  code  of  thirty-nine  articles,  which  have  no 
doubt  often  hampered  her  progress  and  dis- 
turbed the  consciences  of  her  clergy  compelled 
by  law  to  subscribe  them.  The  organizers  of 
our  Church,  knowing  that  however  unnecessary 
these  articles  might  be,  or  however  faulty  in 
expression,  still,  like  the  Catholic  Creeds  them- 
selves, they  contained  the  substance  of  all  true 
religious  belief,  decided  to  retain  them  in  the 
Prayer  Book  as  an  historical  document,  not  to 

65 


66  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

be  formally  subscribed  by  ministers  or  people, 
but  rather  to  indicate  the  close  relationship 
between  the  Church  in  England   and  America. 

There  seems  no  sufficient  reason,  as  we  re- 
gard them,  why  the  broadest  thinker  should 
not  feel  able  to  subscribe  them  as  a  whole,  but 
in  point  of  fact  they  stand  in  the  back  of  our 
Prayer  Book  as  a  witness  to  our  spiritual  descent 
as  Churchmen,  a  document  serving  to  remind 
us  of  the  crisis  the  Church  went  through  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  of  the  debt  of  religious 
freedom  we  owe  the  English  Reformers. 

The  only  doctrinal  standards  we  have  are 
contained  in  the  two  Creeds,  the  shorter  of 
which,  from  a  legend  that  each  of  the  twelve 
Apostles  contributed  a  clause,  is  commonly 
called  the  Apostles'  Creed,  the  longer,  made 
in  its  original  form  by  the  Council  of  Nicea 
in  the  year  325,  and  afterward  added  to,  the 
Nicene.  The  Apostles'  Creed  was  probably 
formed  by  combining  the  various  simple  Con- 
fessions of  Faith  used  in  the  Early  Church  by 
those  who  were  admitted  to  baptism,  and  it 
came  into  general  use  in  the  Latin  Church ; 
while  the  Nicene,  formed  on  the  basis  of  an 
earlier  Creed  in  use  in  the  Church  in  Palestine, 


The  Creeds,  67 

and,  much  more  than  the  Apostles',  the  product 
of  speculative  thought,  became  distinctively 
the  Creed  of  the  Eastern  Church.'  "  But  there 
is  one  point,"  says  Dean  Stanley,  ''  which  the 
two  Creeds  have  in  common.  It  is  the  frame- 
work on  which  they  are  formed.  The  frame- 
work is  the  simple  expression  of  faith  used  in  the 
Baptism  of  the  early  Christians.  It  is  taken  from 
the  First  Gospel,  and  it  consists  of  *  the  name 
of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.' " 
At  first  it  was  common  to  use  simply  the 
name  of  Christ  in  the  profession  of  Christian- 
ity, but  that  was  soon  superseded  by  the  Trin- 
itarian formulary  found  in  the  twenty-eighth 
chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  and  in 
the  second  century  the  latter  became  universal. 
The  use  of  this  formulary  in  baptism  antedates 
all  the  discussions  recorded  in  Church  History 
concerning  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which, 
at  last,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century, 
became  fully  settled  as  a  symbol  or  mode  of 
expression  of  the  belief  of  the  Church.  The 
history  of  these  discussions   is   instructive,   as 


'  The  history  of  the  origin  of  the  Nicene  Creed  will  be 
found  in  detail  in  Dean  Stanley's  "  History  of  the  Eastern 
Church." 


68  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

showing  how  impossible  it  often  is  for  people  of 
mystical  and  speculative,  and  people  of  logical 
and  practical  tendencies  of  thought  to  under- 
stand each  other.  The  heretics  of  that  early- 
time  were  often  heretics  simply  because  a  dif- 
ferent philosophical  training  had  made  it  im- 
possible for  them  to  enter  into  all  the  subtle- 
ties of  the  thought  of  their  orthodox  oppo- 
nents, while  many  of  their  persecutions  wxre 
the  result  of  the  failure  of  the  Church  party  to 
see  the  difference  between  religion  and  their 
peculiar  thought  about  religion. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  framework 
of  the  Creeds,  but  it  is  not  a  doctrine  originat- 
ing with  or  peculiar  to  Christianity.  Triads 
and  Trinities  belong  to  many  of  the  religious 
and  philosophical  systems  of  earlier  and  later 
times,  and  the  Trinitarian  symbol  of  Christian- 
ity we  may  with  little  hesitation  trace  imme- 
diately to  a  Greek  source. 

The  following  paragraph  from  a  little  book 
called  "  The  Keys  of  the  Creeds  "  is  very  sug- 
gestive, as  indicating  some  of  the  steps  by  which 
the  symbol  reached  the  early  Christian  Church. 

"The  School  of  Alexandria  added  a  new 
Trinity  to   those   already  received    in  Egypt. 


The  Creeds.  69 

This  new  Trinity  was  based  on  an  analysis  of 
the  functions  of  the  individual  man.  Every 
living  being  consists  of  a  trinity  ;  the  individual 
self ;  the  mind  ;  and  the  life  .  .  .  projecting 
the  individual  man  into  the  ideal,  and  di- 
vesting him  of  limitations,  the  Neoplatonists 
presented  their  Trinity  as  consisting  of  three 
Persons,  of  whom  the  first  was  unity,  infinite  / 
and  perfect,  but  capable  of  generating  exist- 
ence. The  second  person  was  subordinate  to 
the  first,  but  was  the  most  perfect  of  all  gen- 
erated beings.  It  was  called  the  Intelligence, 
Wisdom,  or  Word, — Logos,  a  Greek  term,  by  a 
happy  coincidence  signifying  both  reason  and 
speech.  The  third  person  was  the  universal 
Spirit,  Soul,  or  Life.  It  was  only  through  the 
Word  that  God  the  Father  could  be  known,  as 
a  man's  mind  can  only  be  known  through  his 
speech.  The  Word  was  thus  the  interpreter  or 
Mediator  between  God  and  man.  The  leading 
apostle  of  this  philosophy  was  a  Jew,  named 
Philo,  who  was  born  about  B.C.  30.^     He  was 

^  Philo  lived  in  Alexandria,  the  most  intellectual  centre  of 
the  Eastern  world,  at  the  time  when  Christian  doctrines  were 
moulding,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  of  the  strong  influence 
he  and  his  school  exerted  on  the  intellectual  spirit  and  form 
of  early  Catholic  theology. 


JO  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

at  once  an  enthusiastic  disciple  of  Plato,  and 
an  ardent  Jew  after  the  pattern  of  the  later  and 
more  spiritual  type.  His  countrymen,  grow- 
ing in  spiritual  graces  since  the  captivity,  had 
long  been  familiar  with  the  idea  of  the  Logos, 
whom  they  personified  under  the  name  of  Wis- 
dom."— ("  Keys  of  the  Creeds,"  p  Zj^ 

However  the  number  tJiree  first  came  to  be 
used  as  a  mystic  or  sacred  number,  its  use  as 
such  is  very  ancient,  and  is  intended  to  convey 
the  idea  of  completeness.  In  Christianity  it 
denotes  the  completeness  of  the  nature  of  God 
and  His  relations  with  mankind,  and  so  impos- 
sible does  the  ordinary  mind  find  it  to  symbol- 
ize God  under  the  figure  of  unity  alone,  and  so 
naturally  does  the  idea  of  completeness  take 
shape  as  threefoldness,  that  there  seems  little 
probability,  no  matter  how  far  or  fast  scientific 
thought  may  progress,  that  the  Christian  sym- 
bol of  the  Trinity  shall  disappear.  Not  more 
from  regard  for  an  ancient  and  venerable  sym- 
bol, than  from  a  sense  of  its  value  in  keeping 
before  the  minds  of  men  the  largeness  and  rich- 
ness of  the  divine  nature  and  revelation,  do 
Christian  thinkers  hold  and  value  it. 

This  deeper  and  profounder  significance  of 


The  Creeds.  yi 

the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  felt  by  the 
Alexandrian  theologians  and  by  Athanasius,  the 
great  champion  of  Catholic  orthodoxy.  But  in 
the  Latin  Church  the  doctrine  soon  hardened 
into  what  seems  very  like  belief  in  three  gods, 
and  in  the  popular  Calvinistic  theology  of 
New  England  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  be- 
lief very  nearly  allied  to  heathen  polytheism  pre- 
vailed. The  popular  mind  conceived  of  a  God 
of  justice,  a  God  of  love,  and  another  God,  subor- 
dinate to  these  two,  on  whom  they  both  relied  to 
carry  out  their  plans.  The  Unitarian  protest- 
ants,  keenly  alive  to  the  outrage  Calvinistic  the- 
ology had  done  to  the  divine  truths  written  in 
man's  intellect  and  heart,  yet  blind  to  the  evolu- 
tion of  religion,  and  the  intrinsic  value  of  the 
religious  symbols  Calvinism  had  either  per- 
verted or  thrown  away,  and  lacking  the  catholic 
spirit  of  the  older  churches  of  Christendom,  cast 
this  symbol  aside  as  a  sign  of  unenlightened 
thought,  and  from  that  time  to  the  present  they 
and  their  descendants  have  done  without  it. 

So  far  from  being  a  sign  of  narrow  or  mis- 
taken thought,  the  Trinitarian  symbol  is  un- 
doubtedly a  great  help  and  stimulus  to  pro- 
found and  rational  beliefs  concerning  God  ;  and 


72  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

even  the  Unitarian  body,  which  in  many  places 
has  outlived  much  of  the  aggressive  spirit  with 
which  it  naturally  began,  and  has  mellowed  and 
softened  with  time,  has  quite  ceased  to  protest 
against  it. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  basis  or 
framework  of  the  Creeds,  although  the  symbol 
is  nowhere  directly  referred  to  in  them.  Saying 
them  we  confess  our  belief  in  God  as  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  and  this  is  the  sum  of  our 
statement  of  belief,  for  the  latter  clauses  of 
the  Creeds,  which  relate  to  tJie  Holy  Catholic 
C/mrch,  the  Connminion  of  Saints^  the  Forgive- 
ness of  Sins,  are  still  further  declarations  of 
belief  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  third  Person  in  the 
Trinity.  We  believe  in  one  God  in  three  Per- 
sons ;  but  what  do  we  mean  by  the  word  person 
as  applied  to  God?  We  clearly  do  not  mean 
that  God  is  a  person  as  we  are  persons.  A 
Being  whose  nature  has  no  limitations,  to  whose 
attributes  of  thought  and  will  there  are  no 
bounds,  must  be  very  far  removed  from  us,  with 
our  imperfect  thought  and  feeble  power  of  will 
and  many  limitations.  The  personality  of  God, 
like  our  own,  is  based  on  conscious  thought, 
intelligence,  and  implies  the  power  to  will,  but 


The  Creeds.  73 

in  God  thought  and  will  are  perfect  and  com- 
plete. Yet  God  exists  not  in  solitary  infi- 
niteness,  lonely  perfection  of  personality,  but 
in  self-manifestation,  in  relations.  There  are 
mysterious  depths  of  being  in  Him  that  we 
have  received  only  faint  suggestions  of,  but  if 
He  existed  in  cold,  abstract  unity  we  could  never 
know  Him  at  all.  He  would  forever  remain  to 
us  the  incomprehensible  and  unthinkable  source 
from  which  all  things  proceed,  never  to  be 
named  nor  known, — an  Infinite  Father,  but  an 
Infinite  Silence  as  well.  God  cannot  exist  in 
absolute  mystery.  His  nature  requires  self-rev- 
elation, and  He  has  revealed  Himself.  Speech 
has  come  out  of  the  Silence,  and  that  speech, 
God's  thought,  the  Logos  (both  reason  and 
speech) — all  of  God  that  can  be  named  and 
known, — is  the  Revelation  of  the  Son.  In  hu- 
manity that  revelation  is  most  intelligible,  most 
complete,  and  in  Jesus,  the  Christ  of  history,  it 
culminates,  and  at  last  is  grandly  summed  up. 

Nor  can  God  cease  to  create.  From  Him 
continually  comes  forth  creative  and  sustaining 
power.  He  causes  death,  and  out  of  death 
brings  nobler  forms  of  life.  He  hath  created 
the  heavens  and  stretched  them  out ;  He  hath 


74  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

spread  forth  the  earth  and  that  which  comeih  out 
of  it ;  and  still  the  creation  drama  ceases  not, 
for  He  givetJi  breath  unto  the  people  tipon  it,  and 
spirit  to  them  that  walk  therein.  Along  with  the 
speecJi  of  God  goes  ever  the  manifestation  of  His 
power  J  which  is  the  revelation  of  the  Spirit. 

Thus  we  have  God  in  three  persons  or  char- 
acters, back  of  and  revealing  itself  through 
each  of  which,  is  the  Divine  Personality,  the 
Infinite  Intelligence.  Back  of  the  Silence  is 
God,  back  of  the  Speech  is  God,  and  back  of 
the  Power  is  God. 

Canon  Liddon,  "  Bampton  Lectures,"  p.  49, 
says : ''  That  three  such  distinctions  (having  their 
basis  in  the  Essence  of  the  Godhead)  exist,  is  a 
matter  of  Revelation.  In  the  common  language 
of  the  Western  Church,  these  distinct  Forms 
of  Being  are  named  Persons.  Yet  that  term 
cannot  be  employed  to  denote  them  without 
considerable  intellectual  caution."  The  Latin 
word  persona,  as  is  well  known,  originally  meant 
the  mask  or  character  the  player  on  the  stage 
assumed,  but  in  time  it  came  to  denote  an  indi- 
vidual of  a  species.  Thus,  when  it  was  finally 
used  in  theology  to  represent  the  original  Greek 
word  hypostasis,  which  meant  not  an  individual 


The  Creeds.  75 

of  a  class,  but  a  Distinction  in  the  Essejtce  of 
God,  it  could  not  fail  to  mislead.  *'  The  con- 
ception of  species,"  Canon  Liddon  says,  "  is 
utterly  inapplicable  to  that  One  Supreme 
Essence  which   we   name   God." 

There  are  many  aspects  under  which  this 
threefoldness  of  God's  nature,  and  so  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  which  beautifully  yet  feebly 
tries  to  express  it,  may  be  regarded.  Dean 
Stanley  says  that  the  whole  faith  of  Natural 
Religion,  the  faith  of  the  Natural  Conscience,  is 
indicated  by  the  name  of  the  Father;  Histori- 
cal Religion,  or  the  Faith  of  the  Christian 
Church,  God  in  history,  in  man,  and  above  all  in 
Jesus  Christ,  by  the  name  of  the  Son ;  and 
Spiritual  Religion,  or  God  in  our  own  hearts 
and  spirits  and  consciences,  by  the  name  of  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

Wherever  among  men  we  find  any  sense  of 
awe  or  mystery,  any  aspiration  of  soul  after 
truth  and  goodness,  any  dissatisfaction  with  that 
which  is  low,  base,  vile,  any — however  feeble — 
groping  after  spiritual  light,  we  have  the  rev- 
elation of  God  the  Father.  Wherever  we  find 
the  human  feeling  of  the  brotherhood  of  man- 
kind, wherever  in   men*s   natures,  we   see  re- 


76  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

fleeted  the  wisdom  and  strength  and  forbear- 
ance and  tenderness  of  God,  or  find  the  spirit 
of  loving,  religious  sympathy  drawing  people 
together  in  organized  societies  for  worship  and 
charitable  works,  we  have  a  revelation  of  God 
the  Son.  Wherever  we  find  men  conscious  of 
a  power  of  righteousness  within  them,  strug- 
gling to  free  their  natures  from  captivity  to  sin, 
pleading  with  them  to  be  true  to  duty,  to  fol- 
low charity  and  faith  and  patience,  honesty  and 
purity  and  love  with  all  men ;  wherever  in  the 
Church  we  see  a  spirit  of  earnest  faith  that 
triumphs  over  false  and  narrow  prejudices  and 
keeps  religious  life  in  its  true  place,  above  form, 
we  have  a  revelation  of  God  the  Holy  Spirit. 
It  would  be  hard  to  see  how  the  world  could  do 
without  either  view  of  God.  Dean  Stanley 
says :  *'  To  acknowledge  this  triple  form  of 
revelation,  to  acknowledge  this  complex  aspect 
of  Deity,  as  it  runs  through  the  multiform  ex- 
pressions of  the  Bible,  saves,  as  it  were,  the 
reverence  due  to  the  Almighty  Ruler  of  the 
universe,  tends  to  preserve  the  balance  of  truth 
from  any  partial  or  polemical  bias,  presents  to 
us  not  a  meagre,  fragmentary  view  of  only  one 
part  of  the  Divine  mind,  but  a  wide,  Catholic 


The  Ci^eeds.  77 

summary  of  the  whole,  so  far  as  nature,  history, 
and  experience  permit.  If  we  cease  to  think 
of  the  Universal  Father,  we  become  narrow  and 
exclusive.  If  we  cease  to  think  of  the  Founder 
of  Christianity  '  and  of  the  grandeur  of  Chris- 
tendom, we  lose  our  hold  on  the  great  historic 
events  which  have  swayed  the  hopes  and  affec- 
tions of  man  in  the  highest  moments  of  human 
progress.  If  we  cease  to  think  of  the  Spirit, 
we  lose  the  inmost  meaning  of  Creed  and 
Prayer,  of  Church  and  Bible,  of  human  char- 
acter and  of  vital  religion." 

In  i860,  Charles  Kingsley,  who,  with  Maurice 
and  others,  was  deeply  distressed  over  the  fail- 
ure of  the  Tractarian  leaders,  such  as  Pusey  and 
Newman  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Evangelical 
leaders  on  the  other,  to  point  out  the  deeper 
principles  and  make  clear  the  rational  basis  of 
religious  thought,  wrote  his  novel  *'  Yeast." 
The  book  traces  the  intellectual  and  moral 
development  of  Lancelot  Smith,  a  young  Eng- 
lishman, educated  under  Evangelical  influence, 

^  When  we  say  of  Jesus  "  Conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate,  was 
crucified,  dead  and  buried,  and  went  into  the  place  of  departed 
spirits,''^  we  simply  mean  to  declare  our  belief  in  the  facts 
of  his  history  whatever  they  are. 


yS  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

and  now  skeptical  of  his  early  mistaken  opin- 
ions. At  one  of  the  crises  of  his  life  he  is  found 
in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  talking  with  an  Asiatic- 
Christian  philosopher.  "  Who  is  He  to  whom 
you  ask  me  to  turn  ?  "  Lancelot  says.  "  You 
talk  to  7ne  of  Him  as  my  Father;  but  you  talk 
of  Him  to  men  of  your  own  Creed  as  the 
Father.  You  have  mysterious  dogmas  of  three 
in  one.  I  know  them — I  have  admired  them  in 
all  their  forms,  in  the  Vedas,  in  the  Neo  Pla- 
tonists,  in  Jacob  Boehmen,  in  your  Catholic 
Creeds,  in  Coleridge,  and  in  the  Germans,  from 
whom  he  borrowed  them.  I  have  looked  at 
them,  and  found  in  them  beautiful  phantasms 
of  philosophy — all  but  scientific  necessities, — 

but "       "  But  what  ?  "   answers   the  sage. 

And  Lancelot  says :  **  I  do  not  want  cold,  ab- 
stract necessities  of  logic ;  I  want  living,  practi- 
cal facts.  If  those  mysterious  dogmas  speak  of 
real  and  necessary  properties  of  His  being,  they 
must  be  necessarily  interwoven  in  practice  with 
His  revelation  of  Himself."  Then  the  Chris- 
tian philosopher  says,  in  substance,  for  we  do 
not  quote  the  words  :  Have  you  not  felt  the 
necessity  for  an  All-Father,  the  Father  of  Per- 
sons, and  so  Himself  the  source  of  personality, 


The  Creeds,  79 

the  fulfilment  of  our  fitful  and  broken  dreams 
of  power,  wisdom,  creative  energy,  love,  justice, 
pity?  Have  you  not  always  been  conscious  of 
the  imperfections  of  your  own,  the  common 
manhood,  and  in  your  own  consciousness  al- 
ways been  holding,  perhaps  unconsciously,  to  a 
perfect  human  ideal,  a  perfect  sonhood,  a  per- 
fect human  expression  of  the  God  above  and 
the  God  in  humanity?  And  have  you  not,  in 
all  your  failures  to  keep  your  life  a  perfectly 
united  life,  in  all  your  ignorance,  passion,  want 
of  will,  in  all  the  confusion  and  helplessness  of 
your  soul,  felt  the  need  of  a  Divine  Spirit  to 
unify  and  give  order  to  that  which  was  so  con- 
fused and  helpless  ? 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  Kingsley  means 
to  say  is  just  what  we  would  find  any  such  doc- 
trine, full  of  vitality,  and  richly  suggestive  of  all 
the  deepest  and  tenderest  in  human  thought 
concerning  God  and  the  soul's  life  in  God. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  threefold  revelation 
of  God,  having  come  to  the  world  slowly  and  in 
the  fulness  of  time,  not  only  can  never  be  lost, 
but  belief  in  it  is  in  no  sense  limited  even  now 
to  those  Christians  who  retain  the  Trinitarian 
symbol.     Opposition  to  the  symbol  first  arose 


So  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

because  its  rich  and  beautiful  significance  had 
been  obscured  and  hardened,  but  for  this  mistake 
the  Latin  Church  and  the  Calvinists  should  be 
rather  pitied  than  blamed,  and  it  is  clear  that 
Christians  of  to-day  are  in  no  wise  responsible 
for  it.  Therefore  to  keep  up  and  apologize  for 
divisions  in  the  Household  of  Faith  on  the  plea 
of  an  old-time  abuse  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity, is  not  only  foolish  but  wrong.  The  cause 
of  the  breach  between  Unitarian  and  Trinitarian 
is  no  longer,what  it  once  was,  a  radical  difference 
of  conception  of  divine  things,  for  both  have 
grown  wiser  and  more  enlightened  in  half  a 
century,  and  both  may  now,  if  they  will,  wor- 
ship with  the  same  venerable  forms  and  express 
their  faith  by  means  of  the  same  time-honored 
symbols. 

As  to  the  doctrinal  symbol  of  the  Trinity, 
since  every  truly  religious  man  is  of  necessity  a 
Trinitarian,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  in 
time  even  it  shall  be  restored  to  its  wonted  place 
in  the  regard  of  all  Christian  men.  The  fact  that 
we  now  need  to  make  clear  to  ourselves  is  that 
we  all  believe  in  God  as  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 
Sometimes  as  we  think  about  Him  He  appeals 
to  us  most  in  one  aspect,  sometimes  most  in 


The  Creeds,  8i 

another,  but  from  no  thought  of  ours  about 
Him  is  either  aspect  wholly  absent.  When  we 
pray,  it  is  with  the  sense  of  either  His  Father- 
hood, His  Sonhood,  or  His  Spirithood  present 
with  us,  and  in  our  dark  and  sorrowful  hours 
one  thought  or  the  other  about  Him  is  sure  to 
give  us  peace.  Sometimes  we  need  to  be  awed 
with  the  majesty  and  mystery  of  God;  some- 
times to  be  soothed  and  cheered  with  the  ten- 
derness and  patience  and  pity  of  God  ;  some- 
times to  be  quickened  and  strengthened  with 
His  indwelling  Power.  Sometimes  we  need  to 
make  clearer  to  ourselves  not  only  that  God  is 
great  and  perfect,  but  that  He  is  the  source  of 
all  human  greatness  and  goodness ;  sometimes 
to  fix  our  minds  less  on  theology  and  meta- 
physics than  on  homely  virtues  and  homely 
tasks  and  the  Christian  courtesies  and  kindnesses 
that  make  life  sweet  and  pleasant ;  sometimes 
to  feel  not  the  stirring  within  us  of  great  pow- 
ers, but  the  quickening  of  weak  faith  and  desire 
for  the  right,  and  the  enlightenment  of  dark- 
ened conscience. 

All  these  thoughts  and  many  more  are  en- 
folded in  those  richly  suggestive,  yet  brief  and 
comprehensive   symbols,    the    Creeds    of    the 


82  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

Church.  When  we  use  them,  we  must  remem- 
ber that  they  mean  to  express  all  the  most  true 
and  inspiring  facts  of  divine  and  human  life  and 
the  relations  between  God  and  man.  In  the 
various  parts  of  the  Prayer  Book,  sometimes  the 
prayers  are  addressed  to  the  Father,  sometimes, 
as  in  most  of  the  Litany,  to  the  Son,  sometimes 
to  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  this  richness  and 
variety  in  the  devotional  spirit  of  the  Prayer 
Book  is  one  thing  for  which  we  should  most 
highly  love  and  value  it.  The  aim  of  the  Trini- 
tarian symbol  itself  is  to  keep  religion  from 
becoming  barren  or  perverted,  and,  as  with  all 
religious  symbols,  its  power  to  do  this  is  the 
true  measure  of  its  worth. 


THE  BIBLE. 


83 


*'  The  main  thing  for  us  is  to  ascertain  the  meaning  to 
which  the  words  (of  Scripture)  are  ministerial  ;  and  we  are 
not  to  imagine  that  the  sacred  writers  deceive  us  because  they 
do  not  give  us  the  precise  words  of  Him  whose  meaning  they 
desire  to  express.  Otherwise  we  shall  be  like  mere  miserable 
catchers  at  syllables,  who  imagine  that  the  truth  is  tied  to  the 
points  of  letters  ;  whereas,  not  in  words  only,  but  in  all  other 
symbols  of  the  mind,  it  is  the  mind  itself  which  is  to  be 
sought  for." — Augustine. 

"  Devotion  to  the  letter  is  the  counterfeit  of  true  and  im- 
plicit devotion  to  the  sacred  text." — Canon  Westcott. 

"  Unto  a  Christian  man  there  can  be  nothing  more  neces- 
sary or  profitable  than  the  knowledge  of  Holy  Scripture, 
forasmuch  as  in  it  is  contained  God's  true  word,  setting  forth 
His  glory,  and  also  man's  duty." — "  Book  of  Homilies."  (See 
also  the  sixth  of  the  thirty-nine  articles.) 

"There  is  nothing  in  the  Vedas,  nothing  in  the  Avesta, 
nothing  in  the  sacred  books  of  Egypt,  or  the  philosophy  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  which  so  unites  the  grandeur  of  omnipo- 
tence with  the  tenderness  of  a  father  toward  his  child  (as  the 
Hebrew  Psalms). 

'*  These  Psalms  express  the  highest  and  best  moments  of 
Jewish  life,  and  rise  in  certain  points  to  the  level  of  Chris- 
tianity. They  do  not  contain  the  Christian  spirit  of  forgive- 
ness, nor  that  of  love  to  one's  enemy.  They  are  still  narrowed 
to  the  range  of  the  Jewish  land  and  nation,  and  do  not  em- 
brace humanity.  They  are  mountain  summits  of  faith,  rising 
into  the  pure  air  and  light  of  day  from  hidden  depths,  and 
appearing  as  islands  in  the  ocean.  They  reach,  here  and 
there,  the  level  of   the  vast   continent,    though   not   broad 


84 


enoueh  themselves  to  become  the  home  of  all  races  and  na- 
tions." — James  Freeman  Clarke. 

"  That  the  prophets  and  apostles  taught  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Holy  Spirit,  was  the  universal  belief  of  the  ancient 
church,  founded  on  the  testimony  of  Scripture  itself.  (See 
II.  Tim.  iii.  i6,  II.  Pet.  i.  19-21.)  But  this  living  idea  of 
inspiration  was  by  no  means  confined  to  the  written  letter. 
.  .  .  All,  however,  insisted  on  the  practical  importance 
of  Scripture,  its  richness  of  Divine  wisdom  clothed  in  una- 
dorned simplicity,  and  its  fitness  to  promote  the  edification  of 
believers." — IIagenbach,  "  History  of  Doctrines." 

"  Few  heresies  have  done  more  to  mislead  than  the  state- 
ment made  by  the  assembly  of  divines  at  Westminster,  that 
the  Word  of  God  which  is  contained  in  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  is  the  only  rule  to  direct  us  how  we 
may  glorify  and  enjoy  Him." — Gail  Hamilton  in  the  Chris- 
tian Union. 

*'  A  book  let  down  out  of  the  skies,  immaculate,  infallible, 
oracular — this  is  the  traditional  view  of  the  Bible. 

"  In  the  name  of  religion  let  it  die  ! 

"  Then  there  will  be  a  resurrection,  and  the  Bible  will  live 
again,  clothed  in  a  higher  form  for  our  most  rational  rev- 
erence. All  that  ever  made  the  Bible  a  Sacred  Book  lives  on 
to-day,  and  will  live  on  while  these  books  exist.  Holy  men 
of  old  spake  as  they  were  moved  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  They 
were  most  truly  inspired.  The  Biblical  writers  recorded  a  real 
revelation.  These  books  hold  for  us  the  works  of  God.  The 
Word  of  God  speaks  to  us  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ." — 
R.  Heber  Newton. 


•as 


"  With  reference  to  things  in  the  Bible,  the  question 
whether  they  are  genuine  or  spurious  is  odd  enough.  What 
is  genuine  but  that  which  is  truly  excellent,  which  stands  in 
harmony  with  the  purest  nature  atid  reason,  and  which  even 
now  ministers  to  our  highest  development  ?  What  is  spurious 
but  the  absurd  and  the  hollow,  which  brings  no  fruit — at 
least,  no  good  fruit  ?  " — Goethe. 

"  The  soul  is  the  perceiver  and  revealer  of  truth.  We 
know  truth  when  we  see  it,  let  skeptic  and  scoffer  say  what 
they  choose.  Foolish  people  ask  you,  when  you  have  spoken 
what  they  do  not  wish  to  hear,  '  How  do  you  know  it  is 
truth,  and  not  an  error  of  your  own  ? '  We  know  truth  when 
we  see  it,  from  opinion,  as  we  know  when  we  are  awake  that 
we  are  awake. 

**  We  distinguish  the  announcements  of  the  soul,  its  mani- 
festation of  its  own  nature  by  the  term  Revelation.  These 
are  always  attended  by  the  emotion  of  the  sublime.  For  this 
communication  is  an  influx  of  the  Divine  mind  into  our  mind. 
It  is  an  ebb  of  the  individual  rivulet  before  the  flowing  surges 
of  the  sea  of  life. 

"Revelation   is  the   disclosure   of    the  soul." — Emerson, 

"  The  Over-Soul." 

"  The  Gospel  doth  not  so  much  consist  in  verbis  as  in  vir- 
tute." — Rev.  John  Smith. 

"In  the  first  Gospel  we  have  narrative;  in  the  second, 
memoirs  ;  in  the  third,  history  ;  in  the  fourth,  dramatic  por- 
traiture. "—Bishop  Ellicott. 


86 


THE  BIBLE. 

The  importance  of  right  views  of  the  Bible 
can  hardly  be  overstated  when  we  remember 
the  part  that  Book  has  played  in  the  history  not 
only  of  religious  beliefs  but  of  Christian  civili- 
zation. A  careful  discussion  of  any  one  of  the 
Sacred  Writings  that  compose  it  would  be  im- 
possible in  this  brief  chapter ;  we  must  rather 
limit  ourselves  here  to  a  general  statement  of 
the  Bible's  worth,  and  of  the  reasons  for  the 
pre-eminence  it  holds  and  must  ever  hold  in 
literature. 

Every  great  Religion  has  produced  its  Bible 
or  collection  of  Sacred  Books,  most  of  which 
are  now  to  be  found  in  our  libraries,  printed  in 
English.  If  we  want  to  know  whence  the 
Chinese  religionists  draw  their  inspiration,  we 
must  turn  to  the  Sacred  Books  edited  by  Con- 
fucius in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ  and  to 
those  compiled  after  his  death  by  his  disciples. 
If  we  would  find  the  source  of  the  religious  in- 

87 


SS  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

splration  of  the  people  of  India  we  must  open 
the  Vedic  writings,  the  Sacred  Books  of  Brah- 
manism,  the  oldest  of  them  dating  back  perhaps 
two  thousand  or  more  years  before  Christ ;  or 
to  the  Buddhist  Scriptures,  with  their  threefold 
division,  compiled  in  the  sixth  century  B.C., 
just  after  the  Buddha's  death.  If  we  are  study- 
ing the  history  of  Persia,  we  shall  be  charmed 
with  many  a  passage  in  the  Avestas,  the  litur- 
gical books  of  the  Zoroastrian  Religion.  If  we 
desire  light  on  the  complicated  religion  of  the 
most  deeply  religious  nation  of  antiquity,  the 
Egyptian,  we  shall  have  to  turn  to  the  five 
classes  of  Egyptian  Sacred  Books,  composed 
several  thousands  of  years  before  Christ.  The 
Greeks  had  their  Orphic  writings,  the  Teutonic 
and  Scandinavian  Religion  had  its  Eddas,  the 
Mohammedans  have  their  Koran,  and  the  Jews, 
belonging  to  the  Semitic  race,  had,  and  wher- 
ever they  are  found  still  have,  their  Sacred 
Books,  which,  grouped  together,  we  call  the 
Old  Testament. 

In  our  English  Bible  there  are  thirty-nine  of 
these  Hebrew  books,  but  in  the  Hebrew  com- 
pilations certain  books  were  united  so  that 
there  were  but  twenty-two  or  twenty-four,  and 


The  Bible,  89 

these  the  Jews  divided  into  three  classes,  which 
they  called  the  Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the 
Sacred  Writings,  or  the  Psalms. 

These  three  classes  of  Sacred  Books  differ 
widely  in  the  purpose  of  their  composition,  as 
well  as  in  authorship  and  date,  and  while  some 
of  them  bear  unmistakable  traces  of  the  times 
when  they  originated,  the  history  of  others  is 
not  yet  sufficiently  determined  to  enable  us  to 
say  with  certainty  when  they  received  their 
final  shape.  In  modern  days  these  writings 
have  been  viewed  entirely  without  perspective — 
history,  prophecy,  and  poetry  alike.  Any  state- 
ment from  the  Bible  has  been  treated  just  like 
any  other,  people  forgetting  to  ask  when  and 
how  the  idea  embodied  in  the  statement  arose, 
or  by  what  peculiar  circumstances  it  was  colored. 

In  reality,  these  Sacred  Books  comprised  the 
national  literature  of  the  Hebrews,  some  of 
them  embodying  their  history,  or  supposed  his- 
tory, some  the  best  thoughts  of  their  poets,  and 
some  expressing  the  lofty  moral  sense  and  ele- 
vated spiritual  conceptions  of  that  unique  body 
of  men,  their  Prophets.  Nor  are  the  books 
that  have  reached  us  the  only  ones  the  Hebrews 
had.     In  certain  portions  of  the  Old  Testament 


90  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

there  are  incidental  references  to  such  books  as 
the  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the  Lord,  the  Book  of 
Jashar,  and  the  Annals  of  the  Kings  of  Israel 
and  Judah,  all  lost  before  our  Saviour's  time, 
yet  all,  no  doubt,  of  equal  interest  historically, 
poetically,  or  spiritually,  with  those  preserved. 
The  writing  of  this  mixed  collection  of  He- 
brew books  covers  a  period  of  somewhere  about 
sixteen  hundred  years,  the  earliest  of  them,  ac- 
cording to  tradition,  tracing  to  the  time  of 
Moses,  the  latest  to  the  time  when  Nehemiah 
was  governor  of  Judea  in  420  B.C.,  and  in  them 
we  find  reflected  all  the  different  phases  of 
Israel's  life  and  culture  and  the  vicissitudes  and 
changes  that  successive  generations  had  to  re- 
cord. The  early  traditions  of  their  origin,  such 
as  every  nation  of  antiquity  had,  are  here  to  be 
discovered.  Their  descent  from  Abraham  is 
recorded,  their  slavery  in  Egypt,  the  beginning 
of  their  national  life  under  Moses,  their  settle- 
ment in  Palestine,  their  history  as  a  republic, 
their  history  as  a  monarchy,  their  conquest  by 
a  foreign  power,  and  the  subsequent  restoration 
to  them  of  independence.  Besides  this,  we  have 
here  the  lofty  moral  utterances  of  their  prophets, 
a  body  of  men  who,  in  successive  generations. 


The  Bible,  9 1 

appeared  as  reformers  of  the  popular  religion, 
which  too  often  degenerated  into  a  system  of 
merely  external  observances;  and  we  have  a 
large  collection  of  lyrical  psalms,  whose  best 
parts  are  so  catholic  that,  although  composed 
"long  before  the  foundation  of  Rome  and 
before  the  time  of  Homer,"  they  are  still  in  use 
in  Christian  worship  all  over  the  world,  and  are 
**  in  every  age  a  fresh  spring  of  hope." 

Extending  over  so  long  a  period,  we  should 
naturally  expect  to  find  reflected  in  these  writ- 
ings a  great  variety  of  religious  views  and  states 
of  mind.  The  Hebrews,  even  with  their  marked 
genius  for  religion,  a  genius  similar  to  that  dis- 
played by  the  Greeks  for  art  and  by  the  Romans 
for  administration,  never  long  remained  station- 
ary in  matters  of  religion.  From  age  to  age 
their  religious  conceptions  changed,  even  as 
their  ritual  took  color  successively  from  the  ob- 
servances of  the  national  religions  of  Egypt  and 
Assyria.  And  in  the  same  age,  widely  con- 
trasting views  and  differences,  as  between  the 
spiritual  theology  of  the  prophets  and  the 
grossly  material  theology  of  the  priests,  are 
often  to  be  found. 

The  theory  of  the  Bible  that  has  prevailed 


92  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

among  us  has  not  left  room,  even  in  the  Old 
Testament,  for  differences  of  religious  opinion, 
much  less  for  inaccuracies  or  mistakes  in  histori- 
cal or  other  matters.  But  the  Old  Testament 
makes  no  such  claim  of  infallibility  for  itself. 
It  simply  claims  to  be  the  national  literature  of 
a  people,  with  the  very  texture  of  whose  organ- 
ized life  a  deep  religious  sense  is  interwoven. 
It  records  their  changing  and  sometimes  con- 
tradictory views  concerning  God  and  man.  It 
gives  expression  to  a  thousand  lofty  sentiments 
that  the  Divine  Spirit  has  enkindled  within 
them.  It  voices  the  universal  hope  and  aspira- 
tion of  religious  souls,  and  puts  words  of  peni- 
tence and  trust  into  the  lips  of  the  sinning  and 
sorrowing. 

"  Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 
The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old  ; 
The  litanies  of  nations  came, 
Like  the  volcano's  tongue  of  flame, 
Up  from  the  burning  core  below, — 
The  canticles  of  love  and  woe." 

Of  the  whole  Bible  Dr.  Mulford  says  :  ''  It  em- 
braces the  most  varied  forms  of  literature ;  as 
genealogies,  laws,  histories,  records  of  legislative 
and  judicial  procedure,  methods  of  sanitary,civil, 
and  military  administration.     There  is  legend 


The  Bible,  93 

and  myth  ;  there  are  various  forms  of  poetry : 
the  ode,  as  in  the  antiphone  of  Moses  and 
Miriam;  the  drama,  as  in  the  Book  of  Job  ;  the 
idyl,  as  in  the  Song  of  Solomon  ;  the  lyric,  as  in 
the  Book  of  Psalms  and  the  opening  pages  of 
the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke  ;  and  in  the  writings  of 
St.  Paul  citations  from  the  Greek  comedy,  as 
from  Menander. 

"  There  are  traces  in  these  writings  of  the 
races,  countries,  and  ages  in  which  they  ap- 
peared, and  of  climatic  conditions,  with  respect 
to  languages  and  customs  and  laws.  There  is 
a  popular  element,  as  in  the  stories  of  Samson 
and  Ruth ;  and  there  is  also  a  priestly  and  a 
kingly  element,  as  in  the  books  of  the  Chron- 
icles and  Kings.  In  some  books  there  are 
traces  of  reflective  phases  of  thought,  as  in  the 
Book  of  Ecclesiastes ;  and  in  some  there  are 
traces  of  Asiatic  forms  and  Asiatic  institu- 
tions." 

In  short,  the  Old  Testament  writings  must 
be  studied  with  the  same  care  as  other  books, 
and  the  laws  of  literary  and  historic  criticism 
must  be  applied  to  them  as  searchingly  as  to 
the  literatures  of  other  ancient  peoples.  Alle- 
gory and  legend  must  be  carefully  distinguished 


94  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

from  straightforward  narration ;  prophetical 
rhapsody  and  fervid  poetry  must  not  be  forced 
to  yield  what  is  technically  known  as  doctrine. 
And  above  all  the  meaning  of  inspiration  must 
be  clearly  defined. 

When  we  come  to  the  New  Testament  writ- 
ings, of  which  there  are,  in  all,  thirty-seven,  we 
find  that  the  conditions  under  which  they  have 
been  produced  are  somewhat  different  from 
those  under  which  the  various  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  have  come  to  be.  They  were 
produced  in  Palestine  amid  the  new  religious 
enthusiasm  enkindled  by  the  life  and  teachings 
of  the  Messiah,  whose  advent  indeed  made  the 
dawning  of  a  new  day  for  men. 

As  Sakya  Muni  (the  Buddha)  arose  in  India, 
in  the  seventh  century  before  Christ,  to  reform 
the  popular  religion,  so  Jesus  came  in  Palestine 
to  reform  not  only  the  Hebrew,  but  all  religious 
faiths.  Foretold  by  the  prophets,  who,  what- 
ever we  may  think  of  their  other  predictions, 
certainly  foresaw  the  Messianic  times  and  the 
more  soiritual  religion  that  the  Christ  should 
bring,  at  last  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  arose 
"  with  healing  in  his  wings,"  the  Word  became 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  men,  full  of  grace  and 


The  Bible.  95 

truth,  and  they  beheld  his  glory,  and  were  in- 
spired with  love  for  the  Hfe  in  God  and  for  him 
who  taught  the  simple  way  of  life.  Out  of  this 
inspiration  were  born  the  Gospels  and  St.  Paul's 
Epistles,  and  the  few  remaining  books  that 
compose  the  New  Testament.*  There  are  inter- 
esting questions  connected  with  the  writing  of 
each  of  them  ;  date  and  authorship  are  not 
in  every  case  fully  known,  nor  can  we  tell  the 
changes  that  have  come  upon  them  in  course 
of  transcription.  But  such  matters  are  not 
vital.  We  know  from  the  New  Testament  that 
Jesus  lived,  and  that  he  preached  faith  in  God 
and  man,  and  taught  that  self-renunciation, 
striving  after  the  ideal,  is  the  true  way  of  life, 
and  that  at  last  he  died  for  his  principles,  and  so 
dying,  gave  his  life  for  the  world  ;  all  else  in  the 
records  being  incidental,  and  of  comparatively 
little  importance  to  faith. 

^  The  twenty-seven  books  which  compose  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  not  all  the  Sacred  Writings  known  to  the  early 
Church.  The  Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  the  Epistles  of  Barnabas 
and  Clement  and  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas  were  read  in  many 
churches  and  held  in  equal  reverence  with  the  books  com- 
prised in  our  Canon  ;  while  for  a  long  time  the  right  of  the 
2d  and  3d  Epistles  of  St.  John,  the  Epistles  of  St.  James,  St. 
Jude,  and  the  2d  of  St.  Peter,  and  the  Book  of  Revelation  to 
be  regarded  as  Scripture  was  greatly  disputed. 


96  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament  writings, 
the  true  significance  of  these  Epistles  and  Gos- 
pels was  not  at  first  obscured  by  superstitious 
reverence  of  any  sort.  But,  as  happened  in 
later  ages  with  the  Hebrew  writings,  and  as  in- 
deed has  happened  with  the  Bibles  of  all  faiths, 
there  came  a  time  in  the  history  of  Christianity 
when  what  was  written,  as  most  books  are  writ- 
ten, with  simple  integrity  and  true  purpose,  and 
with  common  desire  to  impart  to  others  truth 
that  men  had  received,  came  to  be  regarded  as 
given  supernaturally  by  God.  Inspiration  is  a 
figurative  term,  which  means  divine  inbreathing, 
or  movement  of  the  spiritual  forces  of  the  soul, 
but  in  later  Christian  times,  and  especially  since 
the  Reformation,  inspiration  has  commonly  and 
most  unreasonably  meant  the  dictation  by  God 
to  men  of  not  only  the  sentiments  but  the 
words  of  Scripture.  There  are  many  of  us  to 
whom  in  early  life  that  view  of  the  Bible  was 
taught,  and  to  whom,  at  one  time,  it  seemed 
sacrilegious  to  express  a  doubt  of  the  literal 
truth  of  even  the  stories  of  Samson  or  Jonah, 
or  the  standing  still  of  the  sun  and  moon  at 
Joshua's  command,  or  the  speaking  of  Balaam's 
ass.     And  that  feeling  arose  from  the  belief  we 


The  Bible.  97 

had  that  the  Almighty,  who  never  makes  mis- 
takes, had  chosen  certain  men  as  His  amanu- 
enses, and  had  bidden  them  write  all  that  we 
found  between  the  covers  of  the  Bible.  The 
view  was  superstitious  and,  in  the  last  analysis, 
destructive  of  true  reverence  for  the  Bible.  The 
Bible  with  its  history,  poetry,  prophecy,  homi- 
ly, apocalypse,  legend,  and  myth,  is  a  varied 
record  of  God's  ever  progressing,  ever  widening 
revelation  of  truth  to  men.  It  shows  God  not 
speaking  supernaturally  ou.t  of  heaven  to  men's 
ears,  but  speaking  naturally,  age  after  age, 
through  their  hearts  and  consciences.  It  shows 
the  gradual  advance  of  spiritual  knowledge  and 
the  preparation  of  at  least  one  part  of  the  world 
for  the  Christ,  and  best  of  all,  it  brings  us  face 
to  face  with  Jesus  himself  and  his  divine  work. 
Let  us  confess  frankly  that  we  find  in  the 
Bible  mistaken  opinions,  inconsistencies,  con- 
tradictory statements,  and  inaccuracies  of 
various  sorts.  But  that  does  not  disturb  our 
enjoyment  of  the  Bible,  either  in  a  literary 
sense,  as  our  noblest  English  classic,  or  in  a 
spiritual,  as  the  tenderest  and  most  sacred  rec- 
ord of  religious  thought  and  experience  in  the 
world.    We  know  that  some  of  the  Psalms  con- 


gS  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

tain  false  and  cruel  sentiments  common  in  the 
times  when  they  were  written,  but  that  fact 
does  not  prevent  our  valuing  the  truly  spiritual 
parts  of  the  Hebrew  Psalter;  that  the  mind 
and  words  of  Jesus  were  not  fully  apprehended 
by  his  earliest  disciples,  yet  surely  such  knowl- 
edge does  not  forbid  our  basking  in  the  sun- 
shine of  the  Saviour's  life  and  teachings  which 
they  record. 

The  Bible  was  written  much  as  other  books 
are  written  :  the  historical  narratives  compiled 
from  all  available  sources  of  information,  and 
sometimes  perpetuating  as  history  what  was 
clearly  mythical  or  legendary ;  the  poetical 
parts  shaping  themselves  in  the  fervid  imagina- 
tions of  poets  ;  the  prophetical  having  their 
origin  in  an  unusually  high  degree  of  spiritual 
illumination. 

Its  value  consists,  first,  in  its  appeal  to  the 
ethical  and  spiritual  side  of  man's  nature,  the 
divine  in  him ;  and,  second,  to  what  is  often  al- 
most entirely  overlooked,  its  literary  greatness. 

It  is  related  that  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  his  last 
illness,  when  asked  what  book  he  would  like  to 
have  read  to  him,  said  :  ''  There  is  no  book  but 
the  Bible,"  and  we  can  all  understand  what  he 


The  Bible,  99 

meant  by  such  words.  There  .s  no  book  like 
the  Bible  to  quicken  the  conscience  and  arouse 
faith  in  God.  There  is  no  book  that  can  so 
satisfy  man's  spiritual  hunger,  and  in  life's 
darkest  hours  so  bring  peace.  There  is  no 
book  that  so  shames  the  sordid  and  sensual 
spirit  of  the  world,  and  whose  utterances  are 
so  pronounced  against  oppression  and  wrong. 
The  Bible  is  not  a  storehouse  of  proof-texts 
with  which  to  build  systems  of  theology,  but 
rather  the  witness  to  God's  life  in  nature,  in 
history,  and  in  man.  It  contains  the  truth  of 
God  ;  its  record  is  part  of  the  great  revelation 
that  is  in  progress  in  the  world  by  means  of 
literature,  art,  government,  scientific  discovery, 
and  the  various  movements  of  individual  and 
social  life. 

People  sometimes  say:  "If  I  must  read  the 
Bible  just  as  I  read  other  books,  separating  be- 
tween true  and  false,  in  its  narrative  and  other 
parts,  how  am  I  ever  to  be  sure  that  I  have  the 
truth  ?  "  The  answer  to  that  is :  the  Bible  was 
given  to  teach  the  old  truths  that  save  the  soul 
— that  is,  that  make  men  brave  and  manly,  de- 
vout and  tender,  honest  and  pure ;  given  to 
help  us  keep  in  mind  that  we  are  all  children  of 


lOO  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

God,  and  that  sin  against  Him  and  His  divine 
laws  means  sin  against  our  own  natures ;  that 
the  Bible  teaches  no  truth  as  necessary  to  salva- 
tion but  the  old  truths  that  in  every  age  have 
found  response  in  the  hearts  and  consciences  of 
wise  and  reverent  men. 

If  we  are  ever  in  doubt  about  the  truth  of 
the  moral  or  religious  sentiments  expressed  in 
any  part  of  the  Bible,  we  may  safely  test  them 
by  the  highest  standards  we  know,  especially 
the  standard  of  Christ's  perfect  life  and  teach- 
ings. If  they  agree  with  that  they  are  right,  if 
not  they  are  wrong.  Lord  Falkland  wisely 
says:  ''To  those  that  follow  their  reason  in 
the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  God  will 
either  give  His  grace  for  assistance  to  find  the 
truth,  or  His  pardon  if  they  miss  it." 

The  literary  value  of  the  Bible  has  been  but 
little  regarded  in  places  where  people  cared 
about  the  Book  principally  for  the  proof  texts 
it  yielded  for  their  favorite  dogmas.  But  the 
Bible  is  a  collection  of  venerable  and  noble 
writings,  that  together  make  a  book  without  a 
parallel  in  the  world.  It  is  a  varied  literature, 
containing  lofty  imagination,  eloquence  and 
poetry  unsurpassed,  wonderfully-written  narra- 


The  Bible,  loi 

tive,  delightful  biography,  interesting  tradition 
and  legend,  profound  spiritual  utterances,  and 
fresh,  clear,  crisp  suggestions  for  practical  life. 
There  have  been  few,  if  any,  great  literary 
men  who  have  not  been  lovers  of  the  Bible, 
whether  they  cared  for  the  popular  theology 
that  was  forced  from  its  pages  or  not.  Emer- 
son, whose  great  mission  was  to  show  that  rev- 
elation is  not  confined  to  a  book,  but  is  broad 
and  deep  as  human  history  and  human  life,  nay, 
universal  as  creation  itself,  says,  among  other 
noble  things,  of  the  Bible:  "The  most  original 
book  in  the  world  is  the  Bible.  This  old  col- 
lection of  the  ejaculations  of  love  and  dread,  of 
the  supreme  desires  and  contritions  of  men, 
proceeding  out  of  the  region  of  the  grand  and 
eternal,  seems  .  .  .  the  alphabet  of  the  nations. 
.  .  .  The  elevation  of  this  book  may  be  meas- 
ured by  observing  how  certainly  all  observa- 
tion of  thought  clothes  itself  in  its  words  and 
forms  of  speech.  .  .  .  Whatever  is  majestically 
thought  in  a  great  moral  element,  instantly 
approaches  this  old  Sanscrit.  .  .  .  Shakespeare, 
the  first  literary  genius  of  the  world,  the  highest 
in  whom  the  moral  is  not  the  predominating 
element,  leans  on  the  Bible  ;  his  poetry  pre- 


I02  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

supposes  it.  .  .  .  People  imagine  that  the  place 
which  the  Bible  holds  in  literature  it  owes  to 
miracles.  It  owes  it  simply  to  the  fact  that  it 
came  out  of  a  profounder  depth  of  thought 
than  any  other  book." 

To  the  ordinary  teaching  of  the  Bible  by  re- 
ligious people  and  in  the  Churches,  is  distinctly 
due  much  of  the  neglect  the  Bible  now  suffers 
among  us.  It  is  the  record  of  faith  and  so  the 
inspirer  of  faith  ;  and  it  is  our  noblest  classic, 
to  be  studied  before  Homer  or  Shakespeare,  or 
any  of  the  great  authors  of  ancient  or  modern 
times.  It  should  be  read  rationally.  It  should 
be  read  daily.  Its  sacred  words  should  be  com- 
mitted to  memory  in  early  life  and  treasured  to 
old  age.  Its  biographies  should  be  studied,  its 
poetry  enjoyed,  its  righteous  principles  taken 
into  the  soul,  and  its  uplifting,  spiritual  truths 
suffered  to  steal  into  our  lives  like  the  perfume 
of  flowers,  or  soft  strains  of  music  at  the  even- 
tide. 


THE  CHURCH. 


I03 


"  Every  idea  must  have  a  visible  unfolding  ;  a  habitation 
is  necessary  to  any  principle  ;  a  church  is  God  between  four 
walls;  every  dogma  must  have  a  temple." — Victor  Hugo. 

"  In  the  very  earliest  period,  the  Christian  society  presents 
itself  as  a  simple  association  of  a  common  creed  and  common 
sentiments  ;  the  first  Christians  united  to  enjoy  together  the 
same  emotions  and  the  same  religious  convictions.  We  find 
among  them  no  system  of  determinate  doctrines,  no  rules,  no 
discipline,  no  body  of  magistrates, 

"  At  the  end  of  the  fourth  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century,  Christianity  was  no  longer  merely  an  individual 
belief  ;  it  was  an  institution  ;  it  was  constituted.  It  was  not 
only  a  religion,  it  was  also  a  church." — Guizox's  "  History  of 
Civilization." 

"  The  various  grades  of  the  Christian  clergy  have  sprung  up 
in  Christian  society  in  the  same  ways,  and  by  the  same  divine, 
because  the  same  natural,  necessity  as  the  various  grades  of 
government,  law,  and  science." — Dean  Stanley. 

"In  its  earliest  usage,  therefore,  catholic  means  univer- 
sal as  opposed  to  individual,  particular.  The  Church  through- 
out the  world  is  called  catholic,  just  as  the  resurrection  of  all 
mankind  is  called  catholic.  In  its  later  sense,  as  a  fixed  at- 
tribute, it  implies  orthodoxy  as  opposed  to  heresy,  conformity 
as  opposed  to  dissent.  Thus,  to  the  primary  idea  of  extension 
are  superadded  also  the  ideas  of  doctrine  and  unity.  But 
this  later  sense  grows  out  of  the  earlier.  The  truth  was 
the  same  everywhere,  quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod  at 
Oiunibus.  The  heresies  were  partial,  scattered,  localized, 
isolated." — Bishop  Ligiitfoot. 

"  The  life  of  the  spirit  has  its  witness  to  the  world  in  the 
Church. 

*'  The  Church  has  an  organic  unity  and  life. 

"  The  Church  is  the  company  of  all  faithful  people. 

"  The  Church  is  the  witness  to  the  life  of  the  spirit  in 
humanity.  It  is  not  the  source  of  the  life  of  the  spirit,  but 
the  witness  of  it.      The  spirit  is  not  the  gift  of  the  Church, 


104 


but  the  Church  of  the  spirit.  The  words  of  faith  which  can- 
not be  transposed  are  :  *  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost  ;  in  the 
holy  Catholic  Church,'  " — Mulford,  "  Republic  of  God." 

"Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  the  whole  family  in 
heaven  and  earth  is  named." — St.   Paul. 

"  The  Gospel  first  placed  these  two  great  principles  as  the 
main  pillars  of  the  new  moral  structure  :  God  the  universal 
Father  ;  mankind  one  brotherhood ;  God  made  known 
through  the  mediation  of  His  Son,  the  image  and  humanized 
type  and  exemplar  of  His  goodness  ;  mankind  of  one  kin- 
dred, and  therefore  of  equal  rank  in  the  sight  of  the 
Creator,  and  to  be  united  in  one  spiritual  commonwealth." — 
Dean  Milman,  "History  of  Christianity,"  vol.  I.,  p.  204. 

"  To  you  and  me  and  men  like  ourselves  is  committed,  in 
these  anxious  days,  that  which  is  at  once  an  awful  responsi- 
bility and  a  splendid  destiny— to  transform  this  modern  world 
into  a  Christian  society.  ...  to  gather  together  the 
scattered  forces  of  a  divided  Christendom  into  a  confederation, 
in  which  organization  will  be  of  less  account  than  fellowship 
with  one  spirit  and  faith  in  one  Lord — into  a  communion 
wide  as  human  life  and  deep  as  human  need — into  a  Church 
which  shall  outshine  even  the  golden  glory  of  its  dawn  by  the 
splendor  of  its  eternal  noon." — Edwin  Hatch,  M.A., 
Bampton  Lectures,  1880. 

"  I  am  truly  thankful  to  hear  that  I  have  helped  to  make 
a  Churchman  of  you.  The  longer  I  live  the  more  I  find  the 
Church  of  England  the  most  rational,  liberal,  practical  form 
which  Christianity  has  yet  assumed.  .  .  .  Strange  to 
say,  Thomas  Carlyle  now  says  that  the  Church  of  England  is 
the  most  rational  thing  he  sees  now  going." — "  Life  of 
Charles  Kingsley,"  vol.  IL,  p.  136  (extract  from  a  private 
letter). 

"  The  Church  must  welcome  to  its  bosom  all  who  are  will- 
ing to  be  taught  of  Jesus,  and  to  bear  His  cross  ;  all  who  have 
come  to  Him  and  acknowledged  Him  as  the  Master." — Bishop 
Vail. 


105 


THE  CHURCH. 

Churches  or  societies  for  the  promotion  of 
religious  life  and  thought  have  always  existed 
in  the  world,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the 
growth  of  mankind  in  knowledge  and  culture 
has  made  them  any  less  necessary  to-day  than 
they  have  ever  been.  Our  conception  of  the 
function  of  religion  may  be  different  from  that 
our  fathers  held.  The  Church  may  no  longer 
regard  it  as  her  mission  to  try  to  frighten 
people  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  with  un- 
natural teachings  concerning  God  and  the  life 
to  come,  but  surely  man  needs  as  much  as  ever 
for  the  development  of  his  spiritual  faculties, 
the  quickening  of  his  conscience,  the  nurture  of 
his  true  instincts  and  perceptions,  the  pure 
and  gentle  ministrations  of  the  unseen  spirit, 
who  in  all  ages  has  influenced  the  soul  through 
churches  and  sacraments  and  prayers,  and  whose 
perpetual  mission  it  is  to    redeem   the   world 

from  sordidness  and  sin  by  showing  it  the  essen- 

107 


io8  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

tial  truth  its  life  contains.  The  Church  is  the 
great  witness  to  the  truth  within  man  as  well 
as  without,  and  ail  questions  concerning  it, 
historical  or  otherwise,  must  therefore  be  full  of 
interest. 

There  are  two  ways  of  thought  regard- 
ing the  origin  of  institutions  or  customs  with 
which  we  are  familiar,  and  which  age  or  long 
use  has  made  sacred.  One  of  these  ways  is 
to  imagine  the  institution  or  custom  as  hav- 
ing come  full-fledged  into  existence  in  some 
remote  time,  under  the  sanction  of  some  high 
authority ;  the  other  to  regard  it  as  having 
been  slowly  evolved  out  of  preexistent  con- 
ditions or  modes.  The  latter  way  of  thought 
is  that  now  universally  followed  in  scientific 
investigation  of  all  sorts,  and  by  the  most 
trustworthy  students  in  every  department  of 
research.  Just  as  we  trace  our  own  present 
judgments  in  matters  of  thought  and  practical 
life  back  to  their  crude  beginnings  in  our  child- 
ish conceptions  of  things  about  and  things 
above  us,  so  the  modern  student  has  learned 
that  if  he  would  understand  them  he  must 
trace  familiar  institutions  and  rites  back  to 
their  earliest  beginnings. 


The  Church.  109 

The  introduction  of  this  method  into  the 
sphere  of  religion  has  wrought  great  changes  in 
modern  theological  conceptions,  and  through- 
out enlightened  Protestantism  has  released 
men  from  slavery  to  irrational  views  concern- 
ing the  visible  Church  and  its  symbols  or  sacra- 
ments. 

There  are  few  subjects  on  which  so  much 
has  been  written  as  the  proper  organization  of 
the  Christian  Church.  Romanists  have  written 
in  defence  of  the  Papacy,  English  and  Ameri- 
can Churchmen  have  written  in  defence  of 
Episcopacy,  Presbyterians,  Independents,  and 
Methodists  have  successively  argued  for  their 
peculiar  form  of  church  order.  And  almost  all, 
in  turn,  have  claimed  for  themselves  an  exclu- 
sive divine  right  to  exist.  Among  this  medley 
of  opinions,  unfortunately,  all  claiming  support 
from  the  same  passages  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  all  appealing  with  equal  confidence  to 
apostolic  usage,  it  is  no  wonder  that  many  a 
man  has  given  up  trying  to  decide  what  seemed 
so  perplexing  a  question,  and  at  last  has  grown 
indifferent  to  all  forms  of  organized  Christi- 
anity. 

Indifference  to  the  Church  as  an  institution 


1 1  o  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

is  not,  however,  philosophical  or  right,  any 
more  than  indifference  to  the  state  and  its  con- 
stitution, for,  as  there  are  important  philosophi- 
cal principles  involved  in  all  existing  theories 
of  government,  so  there  are  in  all  theories  of 
church  order  and  administration. 

When  a  number  of  men  are  inspired  with 
common  sentiments,  the  first  thing  that  sug- 
gests itself  is  the  idea  of  organization.  Com- 
munity of  feeling  quickly  draws  them  together, 
and  besides,  united  they  will  be  better  able  to 
extend  their  principles  among  others.  The 
christian  Churches  of  the  Apostolic  age  were 
formed  in  obedience  to  this  law  of  organization, 
and  there  is  no  more  reason  to  suppose  that  in 
the  beginning  God  gave  express  commands  con- 
cerning them,  than  that  He  gave  express  com- 
mands concerning  the  government  of  the  em- 
pire into  which  Christianity  was  born.  He  is 
the  inspirer  of  true  religion  and  good  order 
everywhere,  and  He  loves  **  whatsoever  is  lovely 
and  of  good  report."  Thus  we  have  the  right 
to  claim  the  most  divine  sanction  for  whatever 
Church  organization,  in  the  better  judgment  of 
mankind,  seems  to  embody  most  faithfully  the 
true  principles  of  religion  and  order.     Hooker, 


The  Church.  I Ij 

in  his  "Ecclesiastical  Polity,"  says:  "Church 
government  is  a  thing  which  the  Church  itself 
constitutes  under  a  Divine  authorization  to  do 
so,"  "  We  must  note  that  he  that  affirmeth 
speech  to  be  necessary  among  all  men  through- 
out the  world  doth  not  thereby  import  that  all 
men  must  necessarily  speak  one  kind  of  lan- 
guage. Even  so  the  necessity  of  polity  and 
regimen  in  all  churches  may  be  held,  without 
holding  any  one  certain  form  to  be  necessary 
for  them  all." 

The  theory  of  the  church,  however,  that  in 
the  third  century,  under  the  influence  of  Cyp- 
rian, Bishop  of  Carthage,  shaped  itself  for  West- 
ern Christendom,  regarded  the  episcopal  order 
alone  as  having  a  right  to  exist,  and  sought  to 
limit  the  working  of  God's  grace  to  that,  ap- 
pealing to  Scripture  no  less  than  tradition  for 
its  authority.  The  Presbyterian  and  Indepen- 
dent Churches  of  the  sixteenth  century,  disput- 
ing the  exclusive  claims  of  the  mediaeval  cath- 
olic church,  in  the  same  spirit,  likewise  appealed 
to  Scripture,  and  so  there  have  come  down  to 
our  time,  besides  the  Roman  Catholic,  two  dis- 
tinct and  indeed  mutually  exclusive  theories  of 
the  church,  each  building  itself  on  Scripture, 


1 1 2  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

and  seeking  to  prove  itself  the  true  Apostolic 
Church.  These  two  views  are  thus  described 
by  Bishop  Kip  in  his  ''  Double  Witness  of  the 
Church  "  :  "  We  contend,  then,  that  in  accord- 
ance with  the  directions  given  by  our  Lord, 
His  Apostles,  acting  under  the  direct  influence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  established  a  Church  having 
a  ministry  of  three  orders,  and  which  has  been 
continued  by  their  successors  down  to  the  pres- 
ent time.  These  three  orders  were:  1st,  the 
Apostles,  called  in  the  following  age  the  Bish- 
ops;  2d,  the  Presbyters  or  Elders;  and  3d,  the 
Deacons. 

"  We  contend,  also,  that  there  is  no  instance 
of  ordination  recorded  in  Scripture,  as  being  per- 
formed by  any  except  the  Apostles,  or  others, 
as  Timothy,  or  Titus,  who  had  been  invested 
by  them  with  the  authority  of  Bishops ;  in 
other  words,  that  there  is  no  instance  anywhere 
of  mere  Presbyters  ordaining.  And  we  believe 
that  this  remained  an  established  rule  of  the 
Church,  never  violated  for  more  than  1500 
years,  until  at  the  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  when  some  bodies  of  Christians,  who 
had  separated  from  the  Church,  proceeded  to 
ordain  ministers  by  the  hands  of  mere  priests 


The  Church.  1 1 3 

or  Presbyters.     We  therefore  require  in  those 
who  officiate  at  our  altars  that  they  should  be 
Episcopally  ordained — that  is,  that  they  should 
be  ordained  by  some  Bishop,  who  has  derived 
his  authority  from  those  Bishops  who  went  be- 
fore him  in  the  Church  in  uninterrupted  succes- 
sion since  the  Apostles'  days.     This  is  the  doc- 
trine  of   the  Apostolical   succession.     On  the 
other  hand,   those  who  deny  the  necessity  of 
Episcopal  government,  assert  that  the  Apostles 
of  the  Early  Church  left  no  successors — that  is, 
that  it  is  not  necessary  for  ordination  to  be  per- 
formed by  a  Bishop — that  there  is  but  one  or- 
der of  ministers  in  the  Church,  that  of  Presby- 
ters— and  that  these  have  a  right,  by  their  own 
authority,  to  ordain  and  admit  to  the  ministry. 
Such,  then,  is  the  dividing  line  between  us,  and 
to  decide  which  view  is  right  and  most  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  government  of  the  Primitive 
Church,  we  must  refer  to  intimations  given  in 
Scripture,  and  the  testimony  of  History  in  the 
earliest  ages  of  our  faith." 

From  this  point  Bishop  Kip,  to  support  his 
view  of  the  sole  divine  authority  of  an  episcopal 
organization  of  the  church,  goes  on  to  build,  by 
analogy,  an  argument  from  the  Jewish  Church 


1 1 4  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

and  its  complicated  organization,  from  certain 
incidental  passages  in  the  New  Testament,  and 
from  early  Christian  history. 

His  argument  is  elaborated  with  great  care, 
but  one  feels,  as  he  follows  it,  that  it  is  hardly 
more  binding  on  reason  than  the  equally  in- 
genious argument  for  the  sole  authority  of  the 
papal  organization,  since  it  takes  almost  as 
much  for  granted.  The  chief  assumption  which 
underlies  all  claims,  Avhether  of  Episcopalians, 
Presbyterians,  or  Independents,  for  the  sole  di- 
vine right  of  a  particular  form  of  church  order, 
is  that  Jesus  intended  to  establish  such  an  or- 
der to  the  exclusion  of  any  other.  But  it  seems 
strange  that  any  one  can  read  the  simple  story 
of  his  life  and  teachings,  and  not  feel  how  sig- 
nificant is  his  silence  with  regard  to  the  exter- 
nals of  religion  ;  can  find  any  thing  like  hier- 
archical pretensions  or  aims  in  those  earnest 
missionary  teachers — his  first  disciples.  When 
Jesus  was  asked  about  the  external  signs  of  his 
kingdom,  he  invariably  tried  to  show  men  that 
his  kingdom  meant  the  advance  of  spirituality 
and  faith.  When  his  earliest  disciples  formed 
new  Christian  congregations,  they  seemed  desir- 
ous of  giving  them  the  simplest  and  fewest  laws 


The  Church,  115 

necessary  for  their  corporate  existence  ;  when 
St.  Paul  spoke  sorrowfully  about  schism,  he  did 
it  not  as  the  advocate  of  a  theory  of  the  church 
such  as  Cyprian  and  Augustine  long  afterward 
held — a  theory  which  limited  God's  kingdom 
to  a  certain  external  order,  and  made  it  a  fear- 
ful sin  to  violate  that, — but  rather  as  a  Christian 
minister,  who  saw  a  community  wickedly  quar- 
relling over  the  most  peaceable  and  sacred  truths 
of  religion,  and  instead  of  living  as  brethren  in 
one  household  of  faith,  setting  up  rival  house- 
holds, and  so  practically  denying  the  most  vital 
principles  of  the  Gospel. 

We  have  no  evidence  that  Jesus  or  the 
Apostles  held  or  sought  to  promulgate  any  ex- 
clusive theory  of  church  order  or  legislation. 
All  over  Judea  congregations  of  Jews  existed, 
each  with  its  separate  corps  of  elders,  part  of 
whom  were  appointed  to  conduct  its  worship, 
part  to  manage  its  affairs,  and  whenever  one  of 
these  synagogue  congregations  became  con- 
vinced that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  it  seems  to 
have  taken  on  a  Christian  form,  without,  in 
any  essential  particular,  changing  its  constitu- 
tion. The  Apostles  or  persons  appointed  by 
them  naturally  assumed  the  general  oversight 


1 1 6  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

of  these  new  congregations  and  their  elder- 
ships, especially  where  they  were  formed  in 
non-Jewish  communities,  and  thus,  so  far  as  can 
be  ascertained,  for  in  the  New  Testament  there 
is  a  marked  absence  of  direct  statement  con- 
cerning it,  the  polity  of  the  early  church  grew 
up, — a  polity  that  would  seem  to  have  been  for 
the  most  part  accidental  rather  than  delib- 
erately planned,  and  to  have  combined  some  of 
the  features  of  both  Presbyterianism  and  Inde- 
pendency, but  to  have  contained,  at  least  in 
germ,  the  moderate  Episcopacy  of  a  later  time. 
We  have  little  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
growth  of  the  episcopal  order  during  the  first 
three  centuries.  Certain  passages  from  a  letter 
called  the  Epistle  to  the  CorintJtians^  written  by 
Clement  of  Rome,  a  fellow-laborer  of  St.  Paul, 
in  the  second  century,  and  from  the  letters  of 
Ignatius,  who  was  martyred  about  the  year 
115,  and  from  the  writings  of  Irenseus,  who 
died  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  century,  are 
confidently  appealed  to  by  those  who  desire  to 
trace  the  episcopal  order  of  the  church  to 
Jesus  and  the  Apostles.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  believe  in  episcopacy  as  a  growth  or 
development,  think  that  the  supremacy  of  the 


The  Chm^c/i.  117 

bishop,  which  is  clearly  enough  to  be  seen  in 
the  Latin  Church  in  the  third  century,  the  time 
of  TertuUian  and  Cyprian,  had  its  origin  in 
simple  respect  for  seniority,  and  the  preemi- 
nence naturally  accorded  chief  presbyters  or 
elders  in  the  more  important  churches.  On 
this  disputed  point,  Dean  Milman,  in  his  "  His- 
tory of  Christianity  "  (vol.  I.,  p.  19),  has  spoken 
wisely  and  fairly,  and  as  he  has  left  the  ques- 
tion, so  we  think  all  fair-minded  people  should 
leave  it.  "  The  whole  of  Christendom,"  he 
says,  "  when  it  emerges  out  of  the  obscurity  of 
the  first  century,  appears  uniformly  governed 
by  certain  superiors  of  each  community  called 
'  bishops,'  but  the  origin  and  extent  of  this 
superiority,  and  the  manner  in  which  the 
Bishop  assumed  a  distinct  authority  from  the 
inferior  presbyters,  is  one  of  those  difficult 
questions  of  Christian  history,  which,  since  the 
Reformation,  has  been  more  and  more  dark- 
ened by  those  fatal  enemies  to  candid  and  dis- 
passionate enquiry,  prejudice  and  interest." 

And  again  (vol.  II.,  p.  30) :  ''  The  manner  and 
the  period  of  the  separation  of  a  distinct  class, 
a  hierarchy,  from  the  general  body  of  the  com- 
munity, and  the  progress  of  the  great  division 


1 1 8  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

between  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  are  equally 
obscure  with  the  primitive  constitution  of  the 
church.  Like  the  Judaism  of  the  provinces, 
Christianity  (at  first)  had  no  sacerdotal  order." 

Tradition  assigns  the  establishment  of  epis- 
copacy, at  least  in  Asia  Minor,  to  St.  John,  and 
the  Latin  father  Jerome,  as  quoted  by  Hooker 
("  Ecclesiastical  Polity,"  vol.  IIL,  book  7,  p. 
130),  says:  **  Till  through  instinct  of  the  devil, 
there  grew  in  the  Church  factions,  and  among 
the  people  it  began  to  be  professed,  I  am  of 
Paul,  I  of  ApoUos,  I  of  Cephas,  churches  were 
governed  by  the  common  voice  of  presbyters ; 
but  when  every  one  began  to  reckon  those 
whom  he  had  baptized,  his  own,  and  not  Christ's, 
it  was  decreed  in  the  whole  world  that  one 
chosen  out  of  the  presbyters  should  be  placed 
above  the  rest,  to  whom  all  the  care  of  the 
Church  should  belong,  and  so  all  seeds  of  schism 
be  removed."  It  is  not  improbable  that  in 
some  quarters  episcopacy  may  thus  have  origi- 
nated, and  that  St.  John,  as  tradition  says,  may 
have  had  much  to  do  with  the  appointment  of 
successors  to  the  Apostles. 

But  it  is  clearly  impossible  to  establish  the 
extreme  view  of    Cyprian  or  Augustine,  that 


The  Church.  1 1 9 

there  is*' no  Church  without  a  bishop  "  ;  and, 
at  least,  the  difficulties  of  New  Testament  inter- 
pretation, and  the  uncertainties  of  early  church 
history,  are  far  too  great  to  warrant  us  in  tell- 
ing an  inquirer  that  if  he  will  read  for  himself 
he  Avill  find  the  proofs. 

What  reasons,  then,  have  Episcopalians  for 
their  adherence  to  the  Episcopal  Church,  and 
on  what  grounds  can  they  ask  people  bred 
under  other  systems  to  give  it  their  allegiance  ? 
No  Episcopalian  can  properly  tell  people  that 
his  is  the  only  Church,  for  we  have  no  suffi- 
cient grounds  for  the  belief  that  either  Jesus 
or  his  Apostles  contemplated  a  particular 
form  of  church  organization,  never  to  be 
abrogated  nor  changed.  Much  of  the  best 
Christian  life  for  centuries  has  not  been  included 
in  the  Churches  that  hold  to  the  Catholic  order 
— that  is,  that  acknowledge  bishops ;  and  the 
church's  only  apology  for  being  is  the  mission 
she  has  to  make  men  realize  their  sonship  of 
God. 

The  Episcopal  or  Anglican  Church  is  one  of 
the  great  Churches  of  Christendom,  her  history 
tracing  back  to  the  earliest  period  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity  in  Britain,  her  consti- 


1 20  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

tution  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  the  Greek 
and  Roman  Churches.  But  Christianity  would 
have  a  very  hopeless  outlook  if  we  were  obliged 
to  limit  it  to  either  the  Greek,  the  Roman,  or 
the  English  Church,  or  to  all  of  them  combined, 
for  in  both  East  and  West  a  large  part  of  the 
Christian  population  belongs  to  other  churches 
than  these,  many  of  which  have  no  idea  of 
adopting  the  episcopal  order. 

In  the  United  States  a  large  proportion  of 
the  clergy  of  the  Episcopal  Church  have  been 
bred  wholly,  or  in  part,  in  other  communions, 
and  to  her  laity  there  are  accessions  continually, 
from  the  surrounding  churches.  It  was  recently 
stated  that,  in  the  last  twenty  years,  the  number 
of  communicants  in  the  Episcopal  Church  in 
the  United  States  had  grown  from  161,224  to 
398,098,  and  the  number  of  dioceses  and  juris- 
dictions from  34  to  65,  and  much  of  this  growth, 
at  least  in  the  number  of  communicants,  has 
been  in  the  older  States,  and  in  places  where 
Calvinism  once  prevailed.  But  it  is  clearly  not 
true  that  changes  from  Calvinism*,  or  Unitarian- 
ism,  are  commonly  the  result  of  a  conviction 
that  the  Episcopal  Church  is  the  only  true 
church.      There  are  other  sufficient  reasons  for 


The  Church.  121 

such  changes  without  supposing  the  adoption 
of  so  groundless  a  theory  as  this.  The  Episco- 
pal Church  has  advantages  which  some  others 
do  not  possess;  she  has  a  history  that  goes 
back  continuously  to  the  establishment  of  reli- 
gion in  Britain  in  the  second  century.  She  has 
a  liturgy  that,  in  the  so-called  Protestant  world, 
for  dignity  and  spirituality,  has  no  parallel. 
She  is  catholic,  not  only,  according  to  the  ear- 
liest usage  of  that  word,  in  that  she  recognizes 
herself  as  part  of  the  great  Christian  family, 
and  feels  in  herself  the  thrills  of  all  true  life, 
but  also  in  the  later  meaning  of  the  word,  where- 
by it  stood  for  that  part  of  the  Christian  world 
which  recognized  the  episcopal  order,  and  to 
whose  keeping,  through  the  Middle  Ages,  were 
entrusted  the  rich  treasures  of  tradition  that 
have  come  down  to  us.  She  has  a  doctrine  of 
apostolic  succession  which  keeps  her  from  de- 
generating into  mere  voluntaryism.  But  this 
doctrine  of  apostolic  succession  does  not  mean 
that,  in  some  magical  way,  special  grace  is  con- 
veyed by  the  touch  of  a  bishop's  hands,  but 
rather  that  the  Church  recognizes  herself  as  a 
continuous  body,  whose  threefold  order  has 
never  been  broken  as  far  back  as  church  history 


12  2  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

can  be  traced/  An  Independent  Church  can 
make  itself  at  any  time,  without  reference  to 
what  has  gone  before.  The  Episcopal  Church 
has  a  permanent  external  order  and  authority, 
which  she  transmits  from  age  to  age.  Thus  she 
is  able  to  bring  into  modern  civilization,  with  its 
unsettled  conditions,  its  comparative  newness 
and  crudeness,  an  element  of  stability  and  per- 
manence that  such  a  civilization  greatly  needs. 
A  pastor  of  one  of  the  leading  Unitarian 
Churches  of  the  Eastern  States  said  lately,  on 


'  We  are  perfectly  familiar  with  the  disputes  regarding  the 
age  of  the  Episcopal  Church — whether  she  may  properly 
claim  to  be  the  English  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  reformed, 
or  whether  her  origin  is  to  be  sought  in  Reformation  times. 
Can  any  church  perpetuating  the  main  principle  of  organiza- 
tion, the  chief  traditions  belonging  to  historic  Christianity, 
never  having  broken  with  these,  be  ranked,  in  point  of  age, 
with  the  churches  that  newly  arose  during  the  Reformation  ? 

It  may  be  further  alleged  that  a  few  hundred  years,  more 
or  less,  does  not  increase  the  value  of  such  an  organization. 
But  there  are  few  in  cultured  communities  who  are  insensible 
to  the  claims  of  antiquity,  or  the  notes  of  catholicity. 

That  the  Episcopal  Church,  as  she  now  is,  is  not  free  from 
serious  limitations,  is,  however,  apparent  to  all  who  desire  for 
Christianity  the  largest  and  most  rational  expression  ;  and 
there  are  many  within  her  fold  who,  while  strongly  attached 
to  her,  yet  look  to  see  her  and  other  churches  merged  into  a 
great  American  Catholic  Church.  It  would,  however,  seem 
that  this  Church  of  the  future  must  in  some  form  perpetuate 
the  main  features  of  historic  Christianity. 


The  Church.  123 

his  return  from  a  trip  through  some  of  the 
newer  parts  of  the  West,  that  he  had  never  felt 
so  strongly  the  value  of  the  Episcopal  Church 
as  when  he  had  found  it,  with  its  orderly  and 
beautiful  service,  in  rude  and  rough  places  on 
the  frontier.  It  was,  he  said,  the  only  bit  of 
refined  civilization  they  had.  This  is  not  true 
of  other  parts  of  the  country,  yet  there  can 
be  little  doubt  that  it  is  from  a  conviction  that 
she,  of  all  churches,  is  best  equipped  for  the 
work  of  advancing  a  higher  type  of  Christian 
civilization,  that  so  many  men  turn  from  other 
churches  to  her  doors. 

A  few  years  ago,  when  the  Calvinistic 
churches  were  more  hide-bound  than  now, 
people  used  to  look  with  wonder  on  the  differ- 
ences of  opinion  that  existed  within  the  Episco- 
pal Church,  and  some  gave  her,  a  little  in  deri- 
sion, the  epithet  of  the  '*  Roomy  Church."  But, 
of  late,  the  sneer  has  died  away,  and  there  are 
few  who  do  not  now  feel  that  her  breadth 
is  one  thing  that  shows  her  fitness  to  be  the 
spiritual  home  of  the  human  brotherhood. 
She  is  not  a  school  of  philosophy,  but  the 
nursery  of  the  instincts  of  worship,  and  of  pure 
and  earnest  life. 


124  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

Her  terms  of  admission  are  not  found  in 
articles  of  faith,  but  rather  in  the  recognition  of 
the  native  obhgations  of  the  soul  to  truth  and 
virtue.  She  gathers  the  tempted  to  her  altars 
and  gives  them  strength,  the  doubting  and 
gives  them  faith,  the  sorrowing  and  gives  them 
consolation,  and  none  are  too  weak,  too  doubt- 
ing, or  too  sad  to  find  a  welcome  in  her  fold. 
So  in  the  future  as  in  the  past  it  would  seem 
that  her  progress  must  keep  pace  with  the 
growth  of  thought  and  culture. 

To  sum  up  what  we  have  said :  churches 
were  first  established  in  obedience  to  the  in- 
stinct that  bids  men  of  like  sentiments  unite. 
They  were  established  for  the  promotion  of 
the  moral  and  spiritual — that  is,  the  whole  wel- 
fare of  mankind.  They  were  meant  to  help 
men  realize  the  divine  sonhood,  the  universal 
brotherhood,  and  amid  the  fleeting  conditions 
of  this  human  life  to  give  the  soul  a  firmer 
grasp  on  that  which  never  changes.  The  laws  of 
their  polity  were  the  divine  principles  that  are 
given  for  the  establishment  of  good  govern- 
ment everywhere,  the  principles  of  catholicity 
and  permanence.  These  conditions  the  Episco- 
pal Church,  in  her  constitution,  fully  realizes, 


The  Chtirch.  125 

and  it  is  the  continual  aim  of  all  large-minded 
men  within  her  fold  to  keep  her  true  to  her 
divine  mission — to  teach  men  morality  and 
faith,  and  to  unite  them  in  a  large  and  rational 
way  for  the  promotion  of  the  truths  that  save 
society  and  lift  mankind  nearer  to  God. 

In  opposition  to  the  sectarian  principle  that 
men  have  a  right  to  make  churches  on  the  basis 
of  individual  opinions,  she  declares  that  no 
church  can  properly  be  made  except  on  the 
basis  of  fundamental  moral  and  spiritual  truth, 
and  that  in  such  a  church  many  individual 
opinions  must  necessarily  exist. 

In  the  modern  Christian  world  she  stands  for 
unity  and  permanence. 

Into  her  thought  of  unity  come  past,  present, 
and  future.  Her  fellowship  is  with  true  souls 
of  all  times : 

"  The  saints  above  and  those  below 
But  one  communion  make." 

Her  permanence  is  the  witness  to  the  un- 
changing life  of  God,  and  the  eternal  supremacy 
in  the  universe  of  His  kingdom  of  law  and 
love. 


THE  SACRAMENTS. 


127 


"  Earth  's  crammed  with  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God ; 
But  only  he  who  sees  takes  off  his  shoes." 

— Mrs.  Browning. 

"  The  sacraments  become  the  evidence  of  the  common  life  of 
humanity.  They  take  up  the  types  of  nature  in  its  own  hfe. 
This  water  is  the  symbol  of  purity  ;  this  bread  and  wine  are 
the  symbols  of  the  strength  and  joy  of  man.  They  are  the 
common  elements  of  life.  They  are  the  witness  of  the  pres- 
ence of  Him  in  the  life  of  humanity,  in  whom  the  worship  of 
the  visible  is  overcome  and  destroyed.  This  baptism  is  given 
to  children  of  every  tribe  and  race  ;  as  the  sign  of  their  com- 
mon relation  with  Him,  who  hath  broken  down  the  wall  of 
partition,  to  make  in  Himself  of  twain  one  new  man." — 
MuLFORD,  "  Republic  of  God." 

"  Observe,  then,  baptism  does  not  create  a  child  of  God.  It 
authoritatively  declares  him.  It  does  not  make  the  fact ;  it 
only  reveals  it.  If  baptism  made  it  a  fact,  then  and  there  for 
the  first  time  baptism  would  be  magic.  Nay,  faith  does  not 
create  a  child  of  God  any  more  than  baptism,  nor  does  it 
make  a  fact.    It  only  appropriates  that  which  is  a  fact  already. 

"  The  Catechism,  however,  says  :  '  In  baptism  I  was  made 
a  child  of  God.'  Yes  ;  coronation  makes  a  sovereign  ;  but, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  it  can  only  make  a  sovereign  one 
who  is  a  sovereign  already.  Crown  a  pretender,  that  corona- 
tion will  not  create  the  king. 


128 


"This  doctrine  protests  against  the  notion  of  our  being 
separate  units  in  the  Divine  life.  The  church  of  Calvinism 
is  merely  a  collection  of  atoms, — a  sand-heap  piled  together, 
with  no  cohesion  among  themselves  ;  or  a  mass  of  steel  filings 
cleaving  separately  to  a  magnet,  but  not  to  each  other.  Bap- 
tism proclaims  a  church — humanity  joined  in  Christ  to  God. 

"  The  things  of  earth  are  pledges  of  things  in  heaven.  It 
is  not  for  nothing  that  God  has  selected  for  His  sacrament 
the  commonest  of  all  acts — a  meal, — and  the  most  abundant 
of  all  materials — w^ater.  Think  you  that  He  means  to  say 
that  only  through  two  channels  His  Spirit  streams  into  the 
soul  ?  Or  is  it  not  much  more  in  unison  with  His  dealings  to 
say  that  these  two  are  set  apart  to  signify  to  us  the  sacra- 
mental character  of  all  nature  ?  "—Rev.  F.  W.  Robertson. 

"  In  the  early  Church,  the  careful  distinction  which  later 
times  have  made  between  Baptism,  Regeneration,  Conversion, 
and  Repentance  did  not  exist.  They  all  meant  the  same 
thing. 

"As  in  other  parts  of  the  Bible  the  hand,  the  heart,  the 
face  of  God  are  used  for  God  Himself,  so  the  body,  the 
flesh  of  Christ,  are  used  for  Christ  Himself,  for  His  whole 
personality  and  character." — Dean  Stanley,  "Christian 
Institutions." 

"  The  real  presence  of  Christ's  body  and  blood  is  not  to  be 
sought  for  in  the  Sacrament,  but  in  the  worthy  receiver  of  the 
Sacrament. " — Hooker. 


129 


THE  SACRAMENTS. 

Religion  has  always  formed  for  its  outward 
expression  rites  or  symbols  to  serve  as  rallying 
points  for  faith  and  worship.  Some  simple  ob- 
ject or  act  of  common  life  has  generally  been 
pressed  into  this  sacred  use,  and  thus  has  been 
so  charged  with  special  significance,  so  freight- 
ed with  new  meaning,  that  in  time  its  true 
origin,  as  a  religious  rite,  has  come  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  are  the  two 
symbolical  and  representative  sacramental  rites 
of  the  Christian  Religion. 

They  are  the  two  simple  acts  of  washing  and 
eating  exalted  above  life's  other  common 
acts  for  the  purposes  of  organized  Christianity; 
and  their  history  has  been  much  the  same  as 
that  of  other  representative  religious  rites  not 
only  of  Christianity  but  of  the  older  Religions. 
Beginning  simply  and  naturally,  in  time  they 
have  come  to  be  regarded  with  superstitious 

131 


132  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

reverence,  and  to  be  adored,  not  for  the  truth 
they  were  set  apart  to  represent,  but  for  them- 
selves. We  are  all  perfectly  familiar  with  the 
two  opposite  ways  of  regarding  them  that  pre- 
vail among  us.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church 
holds  them  as  sacred  mysteries  to  be  rever- 
enced beyond  all  other  religious  acts,  because 
of  some  supposed  vital  relation  in  which  they 
stand  to  the  soul  of  man,  while  the  extreme 
wing  of  so-called  rational  or  non-churchly 
Christianity  regards  them  as  archaic  and  out- 
worn rites,  no  more  claiming  the  allegiance  of 
people  to-day  than  the  grand  and  impressive 
ceremonial  of  the  Egyptian  Religion  or  the 
sacrificial  rites  of  old-time  Judaism.  The  truth 
about  them,  as  usual,  lies  between  these  two 
extremes.  There  is  nothing  in  the  accounts  of 
their  early  institution  or  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  to  warrant  us  in  giving  them  the  rever- 
ence of  the  Roman  Catholic,  and  there  is  much 
to  make  us  value  them  far  beyond  those  who 
treat  them  as  the  mere  playthings  of  supersti- 
tion. Any  rite  or  symbol  that  has  been  loved 
and  venerated  by  large  numbers  of  earnest  peo- 
ple, and  that  has  ministered  to  spirituality  and 
peace,  however  opinions  may  differ  as  to  its 


The  Saa^ame fits.  133 

permanent  usefulness,  demands  respectful  treat- 
ment from  all. 

There  are  two  questions  to  be  considered  in 
this  chapter  on  the  Christian  Sacraments,  their 
history,  and  their  perpetual  significance  and 
value. 

BAPTISM. 

Baptism  is  the  first  of  them,  and  it  takes  us 
far  away  from  our  present  surroundings  to  the 
remote  East,  among  peoples  whose  modes  of 
thought  and  expression  differ  widely  from  our 
own,  and  whose  habits  of  life,  owing  to  climatic 
conditions  wholly  dissimilar  to  ours,  are  often 
such  as  we  can  hardly  understand. 

In  Oriental  countries,  owing  to  the  dust  and 
heat,  both  cleanliness  and  comfort  demand 
very  frequent  bathing  of  the  whole  body ;  and 
the  out-door  life  and  comparatively  small 
amount  of  clothing  worn  make  the  bath  a  sim- 
pler matter  than  with  us.  We  cannot  there- 
fore be  surprised  when  in  all  the  great  Reli- 
gions of  the  East  we  find  the  act  of  washing 
the  body,  either  completely  or  in  part,  used  to 
symbolize  internal  purification,  or  transforma- 
tion of  character. 


134  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

There  has  been  much  fruitless  discussion, 
among  people  who  felt  it  necessary  to  perpet- 
uate the  exact  form  of  administration  of  Bap- 
tism known  to  the  early  converts  of  Christian- 
ity, concerning  the  use  and  prevalence  of  this 
rite  among  the  Hebrews  before  Christ's  time, 
but  it  is  much  more  to  the  purpose  to  discover 
that  the  rite  was  connected  with  the  religion 
not  only  of  the  Hebrews  but  of  all  other 
Eastern  peoples ;  that  the  Egyptians,  Persians, 
and  Hindoos,  as  well  as  the  Hebrews,  baptized 
those  whom  they  wished  to  initiate  into  the 
full  privileges  of  faith,  or  for  whom  they  desired 
greater  holiness  of  life. 

Thus,  when  John,  the  herald  of  the  Messiah 
arose  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea,  no  priest,  but 
an  intensely  devout  and  earnest  layman  who, 
in  common  with  many  of  the  Jewish  sect  of 
the  Essenes  and  with  some  of  the  older 
prophets,  had  retired  to  the  wilderness  to  gain 
spiritual  power  by  contemplation,  prayer,  and 
fasting,  he  naturally  coupled  with  his  preach- 
ing the  simple,  healthful  act  of  bathing  the 
body. 

The  Essenes  were  even  more  scrupulous 
bathers  than  the   Pharisees,    for  the    sake    of 


The  Sacra7nents,  '        135 

their  ablutions  always  choosing  their  solitary 
abodes  on  the  banks  of  rivers  or  in  the  vicinity 
of  clear  mountain  springs.  Indeed,  ceremonial 
bathing  took  up  a  great  part  of  their  time,  and 
so  there  is  no  reason  why  the  baptism  of  John 
should  have  awakened  more  surprise  among 
the  people  of  Palestine  than  it  did.  The  bath 
in  water  was  so  much  a  part  of  the  outward 
religious  life  of  the  Hebrews  that  no  one  could 
think  it  strange  or  other  than  appropriate  that 
when  he  found  their  hearts  stirred  by  his 
preaching  the  prophet  not  only  spoke  ear- 
nestly to  them  about  their  lives,  but  gave  them 
a  bath  in  the  river  Jordan,  whose  soft,  re- 
freshing waters  flowed  near  by,  so  sending  them 
back  into  the  world  freshly  consecrated  to  God 
and  His  service. 

From  this  natural  beginning  grew  the  Chris- 
tian rite  of  Baptism,  for  although  John's  active 
mission  was  soon  ended,  the  early  Christian 
teachers,  some  of  whom,  as  indeed  Jesus  him- 
self, had  received  baptism  in  the  Jordan,  con- 
tinued the  practice  of  baptizing  those  who 
came  under  the  deeper  influences  of  the  re- 
ligious life. 

At   first  the  rite  seems  to  have  been  limited 


136  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

to  those  who  in  adult  life  embraced  the  spirit- 
ual truths  Jesus  taught,  but  little  by  little,  as 
in  the  older  religions,  it  came  to  be  performed 
on  infants  and  little  children,  the  ceremony  in 
these  cases  differing  somewhat  from  that  used 
in  the  baptism  of  adults.  It  is  impossible  to 
trace  the  steps  by  which  this  change  came 
about.  The  sources  of  church  history  in  the 
first  and  second  centuries  are  exceedingly 
meagre,  and  we  have  no  means  of  knowing 
whether  infants  were  baptized  in  Apostolic 
times  or  not.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  the 
practice  of  Infant  Baptism  was  not  universal, 
in  some  quarters  perhaps  not  common,  even  so 
late  as  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  for 
the  Fathers,  Chrysostom,  Gregory  Nazianzen, 
Ephrem  of  Edessa,  Ambrose,  Basil,  and  Au- 
gustine, all  born  of  Christian  parents  and  all 
save  one  during  the  first  half  of  this  century, 
were  not  baptized  until  they  reached  adult  life. 
Nor  can  we  be  certain  which  influence  was 
stronger  in  bringing  about  its  general  accept- 
ance— the  natural  and  proper  feeling  that  the 
Christian  Church  was  a  school  for  the  education 
of  young  and  old  in  faith  and  worship,  or 
that  dark  superstition  fostered  by  Augustine, 


The  Sacraments.  137 

that  even  infants  dying  without  the  bath  of 
Baptism  were  consigned  to  everlasting  fire. 
It  is,  however,  largely  to  the  influence  of  this 
Father  that  we  must  trace  the  materialistic  be- 
lief concerning  Baptism  as  necessary  to  save  the 
soul  from  future  torment,  which  in  all  its  hide- 
ous untruth,  like  a  dark  shadow,  haunted  the 
Western  Church  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
Church  of  Rome,  in  a  form  so  mild,  however, 
that  Augustine  would  have  censured  it  as  un- 
orthodox, still  holds  to  the  doctrine,  and  thus 
virtually  declares  that  the  infinite  grace  of  God, 
the  infinite  possibilities  of  the  human  soul,  are 
made  dependent  by  our  Heavenly  Father  on 
the  sprinkling  of  a  few  drops  of  water  during 
life  on  the  head  of  a  man  or  child.  Our  own 
baptismal  service,  which  was  framed  before  the 
Church  had  fully  emancipated  itself  from  the 
unspiritual  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages,  is 
not  wholly  free  from  traces  of  the  Augustinian 
belief,  and  many  persons,  especially  of  the 
Evangelical  wing  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  have 
been  sorely  tried  by  certain  clauses  in  it.^     It 

'  It  would  be  strange,  if  in  a  Church  so  comprehensive  as 
ours,  no  traces  still  remained  of  this  mediaeval  belief  regard- 
ing the  power  of  baptism  to  produce  an  entire  change  in  the 


1 2f^  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

has  been  repeatedly  declared,  however,  both  in 
England  and  America,  that  the  Church  im- 
poses no  irrational  or  superstitious  view  of 
Baptism  on  her  clergy  or  laity  ;  that  her  bap- 
tismal service  is  not  to  be  interpreted  against 
the  rational  convictions  of  this  or  any  age. 

As  the  early  simplicity  of  the  doctrine  of  Bap- 
tism disappeared,  there  grew  up  about  the  rite 
many  curious  and  interesting  customs,  such  as 
exorcism,  or  setting  free  from  the  power  of  the 
devil,  a  rite  which  had  hitherto  been  used  only 
in   cases   where   people  were   supposed   to  be 

nature,  and  to  deliver  the  individual  from  the  wrath  of  God. 
Accordingly  we  find  in  use  in  Episcopal  Churches  manuals  of 
instruction  containing  questions  and  answers  like  the  follow- 


ing 


Q.  What  are  we  made  by  Holy  Baptism  ? 

A.   Members  of  Christ's  Body,  the  Church. 

Q.  What  is  the  result  of  this  ? 

A.  We  become  God's  adopted  children,  and  heirs  of 
Heaven. 

Q.  And  what  else  ? 

A,  We  are  cleansed  from  sin,  and  our  bodies  are  made 
temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Q.  Of  what,  then  is  the  Grace  of  Baptism  the  seed  ? 

A.   It  is  the  seed  of  the  spiritual  life  in  the  soul  of  man. 

Q.   How  do  we  become  members  of  the  Church  ? 

A.  By  being  baptized  with  water  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Q.  Is  there  any  sure  way  to  salvation  out  of  the  Church? 

A.  There  is  not.  — Trinity  Church  Catechism. 


The  Sacraments.  139 

possessed  with  demons.  Anointing  with  the 
sacred  oil,  or  chrism,  was  also  one  of  the  con- 
nected rites ;  and  the  laying  on  of  hands,  which 
later  came  to  be  separated  by  an  interval  of 
time  from  Baptism,  and  grew  into  the  rite  of 
confirmation,  which  we  must  always  regard  as 
the  proper  completion,  with  the  candidate's  own 
free  consent,  of  the  baptismal  rite  which  he  re- 
ceived in  infancy. 

But  perhaps  the  most  striking  thing  in  the 
history  of  the  outward  part  of  the  rite  is  the 
change  which,  in  the  West,  gradually  came 
about,  from  the  complete  immersion  of  the 
body  in  water  to  the  sprinkling  of  a  few  drops 
on  the  candidate's  head.  "  For  the  first  thir- 
teen centuries,"  says  Dean  Stanley,  "  the  almost 
universal  practice  of  Baptism  was  that  of  which 
we  read  in  the  New  Testament,  and  which  is 
the  very  meaning  of  the  word  '  baptize,' — that 
those  who  were  baptized  were  plunged,  sub- 
merged, immersed  into  the  water";  and  in  this 
judgment  fully  coincide  such  eminent  scholars 
in  the  English  Church  as  Conybeare  and  How- 
son,'     and     Bishop     Ellicott     and     Professor 

»  See  "  Life  and  Epistle  of  St.  Paul,"  vol.  i,  p.  439  I  Cony- 
beare and  Howson. 


140  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

Plumptre,'  and  Church   historians    like   Kurtz 
and  Mosheim. 

In  the  Greek  Church  trine  immersion  is  the 
rule,  and  unless  it  be,  as  in  the  early  ages,  in 
the  case  of  persons  too  sick  or  feeble  to 
undergo  immersion,  sprinkling,  or  even  pour- 
ing, is  not  recognized  as  baptism.  In  the 
Western  Church,  however,  gradually,  as  most 
religious  ideas  and  customs  have  grown  up,  im- 
mersion changed  to  sprinkling,  the  Cathedral 
of  Milan  and  the  large  and  influential  Baptist 
body  now  alone  observing  the  rite  in  its  primi- 
tive form.  The  reason  for  this  almost  universal 
change  in  Western  Christendom  is  sufificiently 
clear,  and  shows  how  infallibly  time  discerns 
the  essential  spirit  and  meaning  of  any  form  of 
truth  committed  to  it.  Baptism  was  simply 
the  common  act  of  washing  taken  to  symbolize 
the  purification  of  the  soul,  the  continuous  pro- 
cess of  new  birth  that  goes  on  in  every  truly 
advancing  life;  and  while  in  the  warm  East  it 
would  be  more  natural  to  perform  it  by  dip- 
ping the  whole  body  in  water,  in  colder  climates, 
and  especially  in  churches  established  in  cities 

*  Commentary  on  Matt,  iii.,  i,  Mark  vii.,  4,  Luke  xi.,  38, 
Acts  viii.,  38  ;  Bishop  EUicott  and  Professor  Plumptre. 


The  Sacraments,  141 

and  towns,  or  where  intelligence  and  culture 
prevailed,  release  from  the  mere  letter  of  obedi- 
ence to  Scripture,  or  of  conformity  to  early- 
custom,  would  necessarily  be  attended  not  only 
with  indifference  to  the  amount  of  water  used, 
but  with  a  certain  repugnance  to  the  public 
bath.  There  is  no  question  that  were  the  con- 
ditions favorable,  a  plunge  in  a  lake  or  river, 
under  the  blue  sky  of  heaven,  in  some  calm, 
secluded  place,  would  be  far  more  impressive 
than  the  sprinkling  of  the  forehead  with  water 
from  a  stone  font  or  a  bowl  in  a  church. 

But,  with  us,  immersion  is  so  manifestly  in- 
expedient, so  opposed  to  modern  ideas,  and 
the  spirit  that  requires  it  is  so  unlike  the  spirit 
of  liberty  in  ritual  things  inculcated  by  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  that  one  cannot  help  won- 
dering that  a  large  body  of  religious  people 
should  still  be  found  clinging  to  it,  and  indeed 
making  the  observance  of  it  their  raison  d'etre. 

There  is  no  ground  on  which  the  change  from 
immersion  to  sprinkling  can  be  justified  except 
the  ground  of  enlightened  common-sense,  but 
there  it  is  safe  to  rest — unsafe  not  to  rest — all 
our  beliefs  and  opinions.  There,  likewise,  is 
our  justification  for  baptizing  infants.    Baptism 


142  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

is  intended  to  symbolize  and  so  keep  before 
the  world  the  great  truth  of  regeneration,  the 
new  birth,  or  resurrection  from  the  death  of 
ignorance,  selfishness,  lust,  and  sin,  which  is  a 
continual  process  in  true  lives.  And  being  the 
natural  door  to  the  Church,  which  we  regard 
as  a  school  for  the  nurture  of  Christian  life,  and 
not  an  exclusive  body  of  perfectly  righteous 
men  and  women,  it  is  inevitable  that  we 
should  bestow  it  upon  children.  We  baptize 
them  in  token  of  the  fact  that  they  are  God's 
children ;  and  as  members  of  a  regenerated 
and  regenerating  society,  of  which  the  Church 
is  the  perpetual  type  and  witness,  early  incor- 
porate their  innocent  lives  into  the  Church's 
life.  Infant  Baptism,  and  our  view  of  the 
Church  as  a  mixed  school  for  the  nurture  of 
faith  and  worship  and  holy  life,  are  so  closely 
bound  together  that  we  can  hardly  think  of 
them  apart.  Under  Calvinism,  which  does  not 
recognize  God  in  the  soul  of  every  being,  and 
under  the  Independent  theory  of  the  Church  as 
a  company  of  mature  persons  voluntarily  asso- 
ciating themselves  for  religious  purposes.  In- 
fant Baptism  has  no  true  place  and  must  inev- 
itably fall  into  disuse.     The  Baptists,  Charles 


The  Sacraments,  143 

Kingsley  once  said,  are  the  true  and  logical 
Calvinists,  for  they  do  not  believe  that  people 
are  God's  children  until  they  have  passed 
through  certain  changes  of  feeling  which  may 
or  may  not  come,  and  so  they  refuse  to  baptize 
them  as  if  they  were  such.  To  us  who  believe 
that  humanity  is  ''  God-related,"  that  the  hu- 
man is  grounded  in  the  divine,  the  finite  in  the 
infinite,  Infant  Baptism  is  not  only  richly  sig- 
nificant, but,  if  Baptism  is  to  be  maintained 
at  all,  almost  a  necessity. 

Thus  we  may  bring  our  children  to  Baptism, 
"■  nothing  doubting  but  that  God  alloweth  this 
charitable  work  of  ours,"  and  giving  Him 
thanks  that  it  ''  hath  pleased  Him  to  regen- 
erate them  with  His  Holy  Spirit" — that  is,  to 
give  them  naturally  the  privileges  of  children 
of  the  Most  High,  and  in  order  to  make  them 
sharers  in  the  regenerating  influences  of  Chris- 
tian society,  to  "incorporate  them  into  His 
holy  Church." 

THE   lord's   supper. 

The  Lord's  Supper  originated  as  naturally 
and  simply  as  Baptism,  but  under  circum- 
stances far  more  touching.    The  Master,  about 


144  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

to  suffer  a  painful  and  humiliating  death,  sat 
with  his  twelve  disciples  at  night  in  an  upper 
room  somewhere  in  Jerusalem.  It  was  Pass- 
over time,  and  they,  like  all  faithful  Hebrews, 
had  come  up  to  the  city  to  celebrate  together 
this  most  significant  of  all  their  festivals,  and 
now  the  meal  was  almost  done.  We  can  never 
know  all  that  was  passing  in  Jesus*  mind, — how 
much  regard  he  felt  for  the  venerable  Passover 
ritual  he  was  so  scrupulously  observing,  nor 
how  clearly  he  foresaw  the  establishment  of  a 
religion,  looking  to  him  as  its  founder,  which 
should  supersede  the  Hebrew  Faith.  We  can 
never  be  certain  how  widely  he  hoped  or  ex- 
pected his  parting  request  should  be  observed, 
but  we  are  told  that  as  he  reclined  with  them 
he  took  up  some  of  the  bread  that  lay  on  the 
table,  and  instead  of  using  the  regular  words, 
**  This  is  the  body  of  the  Passover,"  or  "  This 
is  the  bread  of  affliction,"  he  said,  in  view  of 
his  approaching  martyrdom  for  the  principles 
of  true  religion  which  he  had  persistently 
taught,  **  This  is  my  body  which  is  given  for 
you :  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me."  Then 
he  took  up  the  cup  of  red  wine  and  water, 
the  drinking  of  which  was  one  of  the  last  acts 


The  Sacraments,  145 

of  the  Festival,  and  instead  of  the  words  com- 
monly uttered,  said :  This  cup  is  the  seal  of  the 
covenant  presently  to  be  made  in  my  blood  which 
is  to  be  shed  for  you.  Then  after  chanting  to- 
gether the  anthem  beginning,  ''  Not  unto  us, 
not  unto  us,  but  unto  Thy  name  give  glory  for 
Thy  mercy  and  for  Thy  truth's  sake,"  the  group 
arose  and  passed  silently  out  in  the  light  of  the 
great  yellow  moon  into  the  narrow  street, 
through  a  gate  of  the  city,  down  into  the  valley, 
of  the  Kedron,  and  so  on  to  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane.  This  is  the  simple  beginning  of 
that  most  venerated  and  cherished  rite  of  the 
Church,  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper, 
about  which  cluster  not  only  some  of  the 
sacredest  and  sweetest,  but  some  of  the  sad- 
dest and  most  corrupt  traditions  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  ;  now  a  bond  of  the  holiest  brother- 
hood, now  a  mark  of  unchristian  strife  and 
superstition. 

At  first  it  was  celebrated  at  evening,  the 
time  when  Christ  had  instituted  it,  and  always 
at  the  close  of  a  common  meal  called  the 
ayaTTTj,  or  love  feast,  and  with  prayer  and 
praise,  whence  from  evxoi.pi(yria,  the  Greek 
word  for  thanksgiving,  it  came  to  be  called  the 


146  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

eucharist.  As  early  as  the  third  century  the 
simple  devotional  forms  with  which  it  was  at 
first  observed  expanded  into  an  "  elaborate 
sacramental  liturgy,"  which  is  the  basis  of  our 
own  and  of  all  the  Catholic  eucharistic  liturgies. 
Then  it  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  holy  mys- 
tery, participation  in  which  was  necessary  to 
insure  everlasting  life  ;  and  when,  as  has  hap- 
pened in  all  great  Religions,  the  ideas  of  a 
priesthood  and  material  sacrifice  were  devel- 
oped in  the  Church,  the  Lord's  Supper  in  the 
hands  of  the  officiating  priest  became  a  verita- 
ble sacrifice  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
into  which,  by  a  miracle,  as  the  prayer  of  con- 
secration was  offered,  the  bread  and  wine  were 
changed.  This  belief,  which  to-day  finds  its 
support  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and 
which  declares  that  Christ's  death  is  repeated 
every  time  a  priest  standing  before  the  altar 
consecrates  the  bread  and  wine,  was  of  course  a 
late  development,  and  in  the  theology  of  the 
enli£rhtened  Christian  teachers  of  Alexandria 
had  no  place.  With  them,  as  with  us,  the 
bread  and  wine  on  the  altar  were  simply,  as  our 
Prayer  Book  calls  them,  God's  ''gifts  and 
creatures  of  bread  and  wine,"  which  they  re- 


The  Sacraments.  147 

ceived,  according  to  the  Saviour's  ''  holy  institu- 
tion, in  remembrance  of  his  death  and  passion." 
The  sacrifice  they  offered  to  God  was  ''  the 
sacrifice  of  praise  and  thanksgiving,"  and  of 
their  own  "  souls  and  bodies,"  and  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ  of  which  they  partook  was 
"  spiritual,"  not  material  food.  The  body  of 
Christ  was  moral  truth  as  displayed  in  his 
character,  and  the  blood  of  Christ  was  love  or 
charity. 

The  superstitious  view  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
held  by  the  Latin  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages 
has,  however,  its  own  antiquity.  The  ancient 
religions  of  Persia,  Egypt,  India,  and  Greece 
all  had  rites  very  similar  to  our  Lord's  Supper, 
and  there  were  many  persons  under  all  these 
Faiths  who  supposed  that  in  partaking  of  conse- 
crated bread  and  wine  they  were  actually  eating 
the  flesh  and  drinking  the  blood  of  their  gods. 
*'  How  can  a  man  be  so  stupid,"  says  Cicero, 
writing  of  the  heathen  eucharist,  ''as to  imagine 
that  which  he  eats  to  be  a  god  ?  "  But  an- 
tiquity in  religious  opinions  should  have  little 
weight  when  it  conflicts  with  intelligence  and 
common-sense.  We  sometimes  hear  heated 
discussions  concerning  the  propriety  of  using 


148  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

lighted  candles  and  special  vestments  and  of 
bowing  often  in  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper.  But  the  only  thing  that  can  make 
these  wrong,  provided  a  congregation  is  pleased 
to  have  them,  is  the  fact  of  their  testifying  to 
a  material  and  unenlightened,  and,  indeed, 
ancient  heathen  view  of  the  Sacrament.  If  the 
introduction  of  these  accessories,  harmless  in 
themselves,  into  Christian  worship  expresses 
simply  the  desire  for  a  more  earnest  and  beauti- 
ful ceremonial,  then  no  one  can  say  aught 
against  them,  provided  they  do  not  violate 
well-established  canons  of  good  taste,  but  if 
they  are  meant  to  symbolize  and  teach  a  mate- 
rialistic and  magical  view  of  the  sweet  and 
simple  Christian  memorial  feast,  then  they  are 
harmful  and  wrong. 

Throughout  this  chapter  we  have  spoken  of 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  in  the  custom- 
ary way  of  the  Church  and  the  Prayer  Book  as 
Sacraments,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  chap- 
ter we  called  them  representative  Sacraments. 
The  word  sacrament  originally  meant  an  oath 
or  pledge,  as  that  taken  by  Roman  soldiers  on 
entering  the  army.  The  Christian  Sacrament, 
then,  was  the  pledge  of  the  Christian's  obliga- 


The  Sacraments.  149 

tion  to  be  true  to  the  laws  of  God,  and  since 
obedience  necessarily  brings  good  to  man,  it 
was  likewise  regarded  as  a  pledge  on  God's  part, 
as  indeed  Jesus  had  declared  the  Lord's  Supper 
to  be  when  he  said,  "  This  is  the  new  covenant," 
or  this  is  the  pledge  of  the  new  covenant,  "  in 
my  blood."  ^ 

Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  are  outward 
signs  or  certificates  of  the  relationship  between 
God  and  man.  When  we  baptize  a  grown  man 
or  a  new-born  baby  we  thereby  certify  the  old 
truth  the  world  needs  to  be  continually  re- 
minded of,  that  we  are  all  children  of  the 
Heavenly  Father,  and  so  under  the  most  sacred 
obligations  to  be  true  to  duty  and  to  Him. 
We  repeat  by  our  act  the  old  truth  so  easily 
and  so  often  sadly  forgotten,  that  only  through 
obedience  to  God's  laws,  which  are  likewise  the 
laws  of  the  soul,  can  the  human  race  find  sal- 
vation. This  our  Baptismal  Service  makes 
clear  when  it  says  to  the  Sponsors  that  ''  Bap- 
tism doth  represent  unto  us  our  profession; 
which  is,  to  follow  the  example  of  our  Saviour 

»  The  Catechism  brings  out  the  original  meaning  of  the 
word  in  its  definition  of  Sacrament  as  not  only  "an  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace  given  unto 
us,"  but  as  "  a  pledge  to  assure  us  thereof'' 


150  Heai^t  of  the  Creeds. 

Christ,  and  to  be  made  like  unto  him."  When 
we  come  to  the  Lord's  table,  we  likewise  de- 
clare, as  the  priest  who  administers  the  Sacra- 
ment declares,  both  the  good-will  of  our  Heav- 
enly Father  toward  us,  and  the  obligation  we 
are  under  to  love  and  serve  Him  and  our  breth- 
ren. But  the  question  comes,  Is  not  every  good 
act,  especially  every  religious  act  in  which  we 
engage,  likewise  a  sacrament  or  pledge  on 
God's  part  and  ours?  To  that  question  we 
have  to  answer  '*  Yes."  Baptism  and  the 
Lord's  Supper,  the  bath  and  the  meal,  have 
been  set  apart  from  life's  many  sacramental 
acts  simply  as  representative  sacraments  or 
pledges  of  the  close  alliance  between  God  and 
man  and  the  necessity  of  obedience  to  all  that 
God  has  anywhere  declared  as  His  will  con- 
cerning us.  Observing  one  day  in  seven  as,  in 
a  peculiar  sense  the  Lord's  Day,  we  thereby 
declare  that  all  days  are  to  be  regarded  as  holy 
days.  Assembling  as  churches  or  congrega- 
tions for  Christian  worship  and  other  religious 
acts,  we  thereby  testify  to  the  divine  life  and 
destiny  of  mankind  and  the  holy  brotherhood 
of  the  race.  And  in  Baptism  and  the  Eucha- 
rist we  likewise  set  forth  the  sacredness  of  all 


The  Sacraments.  151 

life's  common  acts  and  experiences.  In  the 
spirit  of  George  Herbert's  often  quoted  lines, 
we  declare  that  even  the  commonest  and  most 
unhonored  tasks  are  in  truth  divine. 

How  full  of  instruction  and  value,  then,  are 
these  ancient  rites  of  the  Church  to  us.  How 
sacred  should  we  hold  them  as  we  remember 
not  only  their  divine  origin,  but  the  faith  and 
zeal,  the  love  and  reverence  and  holy  life  to 
which  in  all  the  Christian  ages  they  have  wit- 
nessed and  ministered.  Every  Baptism  we  see 
not  only  recalls  the  great  truths  of  the  Father- 
hood of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  but 
seems  to  connect  the  present  with  the  past  of 
Christianity,  and  to  proclaim  the  perpetual 
youth  of  those  holy  sentiments  that  inspired 
the  multitudes  who  came  to  John  in  the  wil- 
derness of  Judea ;  that  stirred  the  self-sacri- 
ficing first  disciples  of  our  Lord  ;  that  made 
the  early  Christians  in  the  reigns  of  Nero  and 
Trajan  martyrs  for  Christ ;  that  have  inflamed 
the  zeal  of  all  noble  missionaries  and  true  min- 
isters of  religion  ;  and  that  have  softened  and 
sweetened  and  made  saintly  the  lives  of  hosts 
of  unknown  men  and  women  in  all  lands  and 
times.     As  we  kneel  at  the  Lord's  Table,  and 


152  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

with  bowed  heads  eat  the  bread  which  symbol- 
izes the  blessed  character  of  Jesus,  and  drink 
the  wine  which  represents  his  love,  we  are  car- 
ried back  to  Calvary ;  and  then,  as  we  remem- 
ber that  the  sacrifice  there  finished  meant  the 
perpetual  sacrifice,  the  divine  submission  of  all 
true  souls  in  all  ages,  how  broad  and  deep  and 
tender  grows  the  Christianity  we  profess  ;  and 
how  many  sacred  memories  are  there  awak- 
ened, memories  of  our  blessed  Lord,  and  of  all 
the  prophets  and  saints  of  true  Religion  among 
all  nations  ;  memories  of  the  early  Christians 
forced  to  hide  in  the  catacombs,  and  there 
among  the  silent  dead  to  celebrate  their  eucha- 
ristic  joy ;  memories  of  our  own  dear  friends 
who  once  knelt  with  us  at  the  feast,  but  who 
have  now  passed  on  into  the  unseen,  where 
face  to  face  with  truth,  they  need  no  longer 
earth's  poor  symbols. 

These  are  some  of  the  lessons  enfolded  in 
those  holy  rites  of  Religion,  the  Christian  Sac- 
raments. They  are  lessons  the  world  can  never 
afford  to  miss,  lessons  in  which  no  soul  can  be 
too  well  instructed,  since  in  them  are  involved 
all  our  true  well-being  here  and  hereafter. 


THE  LITURGY. 


153 


"  How  cold  and  dead  does  a  prayer  appear  that  is  composed 

in  the  most  elegant  forms  of  speech,  when  it  is  not  heightened 

by  solemnity  of  phrase  from  the  sacred  writngs  !  " — Addison. 

' '  Different  tastes  find  gratification  in  various  forms — some  in 

what  is  fixed,  others  in  what  is  free  and  flowing. 

* '  The  time  will  come  when  all  outward  Churches,  with  their 
varying  laws,  will  cease  and  vanish  away,  but  when  the  true 
and  essential  Church  of  Christ  will  reign  forever.  Then  will 
all  members  of  His  body  give  hearty  thanks  for  whatsoever 
means  has,  through  the  gracious  providence  of  God,  been 
given  whereby  they  have  been  brought  to  the  knowledge  and 
love  of  their  Lord. 

"  But  there  is  no  fear  of  the  most  excellent  minister  who 
ever  preached,  making  me  desert  the  Church  of  England. 
Every  time  I  go,  I  feel  more  strongly  how  beautiful  our 
service  is. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  our  good  Church  that  we  are 
only  very  partially  dependent  on  the  qualifications  of  the  min- 
ister. If  he  can  read,  and  most  clergymen  can  do  that  much, 
he  must  read  the  liturgy  ;  all  his  stupidity,  if  he  be  stupid,  all 
his  carelessness,  if  he  be  careless,  cannot  unmake  that  into 
anything  unscriptural  or  undevotional." — "  Memorials  of  a 
Quiet  Life." 


154 


'*  The  Protestant  cast  aside  the  heresies  of  Rome,  and  with 
them  her  arts,  by  which  last  rejection  he  injured  his  own 
character,  cramped  his  intellect  in  refusing  to  it  one  of  its 
noblest  exercises,  and  materially  diminished  his  influence. 

"  One  thing  I  note  in  comparing  old  prayers  with  modern 
ones,  that  however  quaint,  or  however  erring,  they  are  always 
tenfold  more  condensed,  comprehensive,  and  to  their  pur- 
pose, whatever  that  may  be.  There  is  no  dilution  in  them, 
no  vain  or  monotonous  phraseology.  They  ask  for  what  is 
desired,  plainly  and  earnestly,  and  never  could  be  shortened 
by  a  syllable."— RusKiN  ("  Stones  of  Venice  "). 

"I  enjoyed  the  fine  selection  of  collects  read  from  the 
Liturgy.  What  an  age  of  earnest  faith,  grasping  a  noble  con- 
ception of  life  and  determined  to  bring  all  things  into  har- 
mony with  it,  has  recorded  itself  in  the  simple,  pregnant, 
rhythmical  English  of  those  collects  and  the  Bible."— George 
Eliot  (extract  from  a  letter). 

"An  admirable  book,  in  which  the  full  spirit  of  the  Refor- 
mation breathes  out,  where,  beside  the  moving  tenderness  of 
the  Gospel,  and  the  manly  accents  of  the  Bible,  throb  the 
profound  emotion,  the  grave  eloquence,  the  noble-mindedness, 
the  restrained  enthusiasm  of  the  heroic  and  poetic  souls  who 
had  rediscovered  Christianity,  and  had  passed  near  the  fire  of 
martyrdom." — Taine,  "  History  of  English  Literature." 


155 


THE  LITURGY. 

If  we  could  have  gone  with  Jesus  and  his 
disciples  into  any  of  the  synagogues  of  Pales- 
tine at  the  time  of  Morning  or  Evening  Prayer, 
we  should  have  found  the  people  worshipping 
with  a  liturgy.  With  phylacteries  bound  on 
their  foreheads  and  left  arms,  and  the  fringed 
and  tasselled  TaHth  falling  over  their  shoulders, 
we  should  have  seen  them  on  their  entrance 
bowing  in  silent  prayer,  heard  them  responding 
with  an  Amen  to  the  Reader's  **  prayer  of  adora- 
tion," listened  with  them  to  various  Scripture 
readings,  joined  in  another  short  prayer,  heard 
the  reading  of  the  Song  of  Moses  at  the  Red 
Sea,  and  taken  part  in  a  short  responsive  utter- 
ance of  praise  known  as  the  Kadish,  beginning 
'*  Praise  the  Lord  who  is  worthy  to  be  praised  !  " 
the  response  to  which  by  the  people  bowing 
was,  "  Praised  be  the  Lord  who  is  ever  and 
eternally  worthy  of  praise  !  " 

After  that  we  should  have  heard  more  prayer 

157 


158  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

and  a  sublime  chant :  ''  Rock  of  Israel!  up!  to 
the  help  of  Israel !  save,  for  Thy  promise  sake, 
Judah  and  Israel!  Save  us,  eternal  God,  eter- 
nal God  of  Hosts,  whose  name  is  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel !  Blessed  be  Thou,  O  Eternal, 
who  of  old  didst  redeem  Israel !  "  And  then 
we  should  have  said  softly  with  the  entire  con- 
gregation the  "  eighteen  Benedictions,"  or 
**  The  Prayer,"  joined  in  some  solemn  responses, 
and  on  Mondays,  Thursdays,  and  Sabbaths 
listened  to  the  reading  of  the  regular  lessons 
from  the  Pentateuch  or  the  Law.  The  sermon 
would  have  followed,  perhaps  preached  by 
some  one  invited  from  the  congregation,  after 
which,  as  with  us,  with  prayers  and  the  bene- 
diction, the  service  would  have  closed. 

Wheatley,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  like  many  other  writers  on 
liturgical  worship,  has  felt  it  necessary  to  argue 
for  the  validity  of  such  worship  from  the  loyalty 
of  Jesus  and  the  Apostles  to  the  synagogue 
services ;  but  we  are  fortunately  not  obliged  to 
content  ourselves  with  single  or  exceptional 
testimonies  to  the  propriety  of  set  forms  of 
prayer,  since  every  great  Religion  has  developed 
its  own  peculiar  ritual,  and  has  expressed  its 


The  Liturgy,  159 

reverence  in  traditional  symbols  and  modes  of 
worship. 

So  universal,  indeed,  is  the  liturgical  spirit, 
that  the  modern  Christian  sects  which  have 
discarded  ritual,  may  well  be  regarded  as,  in 
this  respect  at  least,  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
Religion  of  the  ages.  It  is  not  true,  of  course, 
that  any  religious  body  is  entirely  without  a 
ritual,  but  we  speak  now  of  the  difference  be- 
tween an  historic  and  compulsory  ritual,  and 
one  virtually  made  by  each  church  for  itself, 
and  subject  to  the  desires  or  tastes  of  a  partic- 
ular minister  or  congregation.  The  early  Chris- 
tians, as  Christianity  gradually  separated  from 
the  older  Hebrew  Faith,  soon  made  their  own 
forms  of  worship,  which  at  first  were  compara- 
tively brief  and  simple,  the  only  form  of  prayer 
that  Jesus  had  bequeathed  to  the  church  being 
the  ever-memorable  form  known  as  The  Lord's 
Prayer.  Little  by  little,  however,  as  the 
churches  grew  in  numbers  and  influence,  both 
parts  of  Christian  worship,  the  service  of  com- 
mon prayer  and  instruction,  which  took  shape 
largely  from  the  synagogue  service,  and  the 
sacramental  portion  of  worship,  which  neces- 
sarily embodied  much  of  the  spirit  of  the  serv- 


1 60  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

ice  of  the  temple,  became  more  elaborate. 
The  psalms  and  brief  doxologies  of  the  one, 
and  the  prayers  and  thanksgivings  of  the  other, 
broadened  into  the  various  liturgical  systems  of 
the  East  and  the  West.  These  primitive  litur- 
gies Mr.  Palmer,  in  his  "■  Origines  Liturgicae," 
reduces  to  four  :  the  great  Oriental  Liturgy,  in 
use  from  the  Euphrates  and  from  the  Helles- 
pont to  the  southern  extremity  of  Greece  ;  the 
Alexandrian,  used  in  Egypt,  Abyssinia,  and  the 
country  from  the  Mediterranean  Sea  to  the 
west ;  the  Roman,  in  use  in  Italy,  Sicily,  and 
the  civil  diocese  of  Africa ;  and  the  Galilean, 
used  in  Gaul,  Spain,  and  probably  Ephesus, 
until  the  fourth  century.  A  book  called  "■  The 
Apostolical  Constitutions,"  which  originated  in 
Syria  in  the  latter  part  of  the  third  and  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  centuries,  gives  the 
common  type  to  which  the  many  later  liturgies 
all  conform,  and  after  the  fourth  century  we 
find  these  liturgies  bearing  the  names  of  Apos- 
tles ;  thus  the  liturgy  in  use  at  Jerusalem  is 
ascribed  to  St.  James,  that  of  Alexandria  to  St. 
Mark,  that  of  Rome  to  St.  Peter,  and  that  of 
Milan  to  St.  Barnabas. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  there  was  no 


The  Liturgy,  i6i 

law  binding  the  churches  of  the  early  centuries 
to  one  universal  form  of  worship,  but  rather 
that  each  church  claimed  the  right  to  make  its 
own ;  nevertheless,  as  any  one  who  studies 
these  primitive  liturgies  will  see,  they  are  per- 
vaded by  a  common  spirit,  and  alike  manifest 
the  instinct  common  to  all  nations  and  races  to 
make  public  worship  dignified  and  reverent,  and 
to  express  their  sense  of  religion  by  means  of 
fitting  words  and  symbols. 

The  liturgy  of  the  ancient  British  Church,  be- 
fore the  Anglo-Saxon  invasion,  belongs,  accord- 
ing to  one  classification  of  the  early  liturgies, 
to  a  group  named  after  St.  John,  and,  at  any 
rate,  differs  considerably  from  that  in  use  at 
Rome.  In  the  seventh  century,  however,  sixty- 
eighty  years  after  the  beginning  of  Augustine's 
mission  in  Britain,  although  absolute  uniformity 
in  public  worship  was  not  secured,  the  Roman 
came  generally  into  use,  and  thus  originated 
the  various  Service  Books  afterwards  used  in 
Britain :  the  Breviary,  containing  the  order  for 
Daily  Service,  the  Missal,  containing  the  Com- 
munion Service,  compiled  about  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  century,  the  Antiphonary,  the  Ben- 
edictional,  the  Collectorium,  the  Epistolarium, 


1 62  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

the  Pontifical,  the  Manual  or  Ritual,  and  the 
Book  of  the  Hours. 

After  the  Norman  Conquest  in  1078-99,  Os- 
mund, Bishop  of  Salisbury,  undertook  the  re- 
vision of  these  Service  Books,  and  henceforth 
the  Breviary  and  Missal  of  Sarum,  or  accord- 
ing to  the  use  of  Sarum,  became  practically  the 
liturgy  of  the  Anglo-Norman  Church. '  But  in 
the  1 6th  century  the  deeply  rooted  and  steadily 
growing  discontent  with  the  prevailing  reli- 
gious order  showed  itself,  among  other  ways,  in 
a  petition  of  Convocation  to  the  king  for  the 
appointment  of  a  committee  to  reform  the 
Ritual  and  Of^ces  of  the  Church.  Accord- 
ingly, in  1545,  an  English  Service  Book  called 
the  King's  Primer  appeared,  which  contained 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Creed,  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, the  Venite,  the  Te  Deum,  and 
other  hymns  and  collects,  "  several  of  them,** 
Wheatley  says,  ''  in  the  same  version  in  which 
we  now  use  them." 

In  Edward  VI. 's  reign,  late  in  1547,  an  Eng- 
lish   Communion    Service    was    prepared,    and 

^  There  were  still  other  Uses,  however,  in  the  dioceses  of 
Lincoln,  Hereford,  York,  and  Bangor.  All  these  Uses,  or 
Service  Books,  were,  of  course,  in  Latin. 


The  Liturgy.  163 

during  the  next  year  the  complete  Prayer  Book 
of  Edward  VI.  was  compiled  by  thirteen  emi- 
nent divines,  among  whom  were  Cranmer  and 
Ridley,  the  latter  burned  at  Oxford  in  Queen 
Mary's  reign,  October  16,  1555,  the  former 
March  21,  1556.  This  book,  to  which  most 
of  the  above-mentioned  Latin  Service  Books 
contributed,  after  being  duly  approved  by 
Parliament,  came  into  general  use  on  Whitsun- 
day, June  9,  1549;  and  by  comparing  it  with 
the  earlier  Books  of  Worship,  we  shall  find 
that  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer  were  sim- 
plified from  the  Breviary,  that  the  Communion 
Office  with  Collects,  Epistles,  and  Gospels  was 
a  translation  and  adaptation  of  the  Missal,  and 
that  the  occasional  Offices  represented  the 
Manual  or  Ritual,  while  those  of  Ordination 
and  Confirmation  were  taken  with  modifica- 
tions from  the  Pontifical.  We  shall  find,  like- 
wise, how  many  objectionable  things  in  the 
earlier  liturgy,  such  as  Litanies  to  Mary,  and 
fictitious  matter  relating  to  Saints,  were  wisely 
thrown  aside  by  the  Reformers. 

The  feeling  of  hostility  toward  Rome  had 
grown  so  rapidly  that  this  Book  did  not  long 
satisfy  the  popular  demand  for  a  liturgy  more 


1 64  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity. Accordingly,  Archbishop  Cranmer, 
with  the  aid  of  Martin  Bucer,  a  German,  and 
Peter  Martyr,  an  ItaHan  Protestant,  both 
learned  men,  reviewed  it,  adding  the  Sentences, 
Exhortation,  Confession,  and  Absolution  ;  and 
omitting  some  things  such  as  Prayers  for  the 
Dead,^  and  a  few  Rubrics.  This  Book  was 
confirmed  by  Parliament  in  155 1,  and  an  Act  of 
Uniformity  passed  in  April,  1552,  directed  its 
general  use.  But  it  is  not  known  that  Convo- 
cation sanctioned  it,  and  it  was  probably  never 
generally  adopted. 

King  Edward  died  July  6,  1553,  and  Queen 
Mary  restored  the  Latin  Missal ;  but  after  her 
death  in  November,  1558,  her  sister  Elizabeth, 
desiring  to  restore  the  English  Service  and  ''to 
unite  the  nation  in  one  faith,"  ordered  a  re- 
view of  the  two  Prayer  Books  of  Edward's 
reign.  Two  of  the  ten  divines  chosen  to  carry 
out  this  revision  were  Matthew  Parker  after- 
ward, and  Edmund  Grindall  then.  Archbishop 

^  These  Prayers  for  the  Dead,  which  many  persons  in  the 
Church  now  desire  to  have  restored,  were  contained  in  the 
Communion  Service  and  in  the  Burial  Office.  One  of  the 
omitted  Rubrics  was  that  directing  the  mixing  of  water  with 
wine  at  the  time  of  the  celebration  of  Holy  Communion. 


The  Liturgy,  165 

of  Canterbury,  and  the  result  of  the  reviewers* 
work  was  the  restoration  of  substantially  the 
second  Book  of  Edward  VI. 's  reign,  for  this 
Book,  rather  than  the  firsts  was  taken  as  the 
basis  of  their  work,  and  the  changes  made  in  it 
were  very  few.  It  came  into  use  the  24th  of 
June,  1559,  and  from  this  time  onward  the 
English  Prayer  Book  received  few  alterations. 
In  1663,  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  James 
I.,  a  few  slight  changes  were  made,  and  later,  in 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  a  few  more,  and  so, 
with  the  generally  desirable,  yet  as  regards  the 
substance  of  the  liturgy,  unimportant  changes 
made  by  the  American  Church  in  1789,  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  has  come  to  us. 

This,  in  brief  outline,  is  the  history  of  the 
Prayer  Book  as  a  whole,  and  when  we  come  to 
a  consideration  of  its  details,  we  shall  see  at 
how  many  points  it  touches  the  history  of  Re- 
ligion. We  read  the  Psalter  and  are  carried 
back  to  the  Hebrew  Temple  service  centuries 
before  Christ,  when  the  same  psalms  were 
chanted  responsively  by  the  Hebrew  congrega- 
tions. The  Venite  of  our  Morning  Prayer  (the 
95th  Psalm)  takes  us  back  not  only  to  the  primi- 
tive liturgies  of  the  East  and  West,  but  to  the 


1 66  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

Jewish  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  for  which  it  was 
perhaps  originally  composed.  The  Te  Deum, 
which  is,  at  least,  1500  years  old,  brings  us  face 
to  face  with  Ambrose  and  the  baptism  of  Au- 
gustine. The  Benedicite,  *'  O  all  ye  works  of 
the  Lord,  bless  ye  the  Lord,"  was  an  ancient 
hymn  in  the  Jewish  Church,  and  was  sung  by 
the  early  Christians.  The  Apostles'  Creed,  the 
Creed  in  its  Western  form,  introduces  us  to  the 
simple,  uncontroversial  faith  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity. The  Nicene  Creed,  the  Creed  in  its 
Eastern  form,  recalls  the  most  dignified  and 
most  important  General  Council  of  the  Church. 
The  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  Gospels  bring  us 
face  to  face  with  our  Lord  himself.  The  Collect 
for  Peace  in  the  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer 
comes  from  the  Sacramentary  of  Gregory  the 
Great,  an  early  and  eminent  Bishop  of  Rome, 
and  is  also  associated  with  Augustine's  mission 
to  Britain.  The  Collect  for  the  Clergy  and 
People  comes  likewise  from  Gregory's  ancient 
Prayer  Book,  and  has  been  used  in  the  Church 
of  England  for  more  than  1200  years.  The 
prayer  of  St.  Chrysostom  brings  before  us  that 
ancient  Greek  pulpit  orator  in  his  church  at 
Constantinople,  since  it  is  from  the  liturgy  that 


The  Likirgy.  167 

bears  his  name.  Part  of  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis 
is  ascribed  to  Telesphorus,  who  is  supposed  to 
have  composed  it  about  the  year  137.  The 
Litany  marks  one  of  the  most  important  epochs 
in  general  history,  the  time  when  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  tottering  to  its  fall,  the  terror  inspired 
by  the  invasions  of  hordes  of  Barbarians  was 
increased  by  droughts,  pestilences,  and  earth- 
quakes, and  the  Church  itself  was  rent  by  fierce 
internal  strifes.  In  the  open  streets  and  fields 
of  France,  the  centre  of  these  disorders,  it  is 
said  the  first  Litany  was  sung  or  shouted  by 
terror-stricken  multitudes,  who  hoped  thus  to 
avert  the  judgments  of  God.  In  the  light  of 
its  origin  we  can  understand  those  strong  ex- 
pressions :  the  offences  of  our  forefathers ; 
Iight7ii7ig  and  tempest ;  plague,  pestilence,  and 
famine  ;  battle  and  murder  and  sudden  death  ; 
desolate  and  oppressed;  troubles  and  adversities. 
Most  of  the  Collects  are  very  ancient,  having 
been  framed  probably  by  St.  Jerome  (who  se- 
lected also  the  Epistles  and  Gospels  as  they 
now  stand),  and  then  put  in  order  and  in- 
creased by  Gelasius,  a  Bishop  of  Rome  in  the 
fifth,  century,  and  later  revised  by  Pope  Gre- 
gory the  Great  in  the   year  600;  while  some 


1 68  Heart  of  the  C7^eeds, 

alterations  in  them  date,  with  the  Sentences, 
Exhortation,  Confession,  and  Absolution,  to 
the  time  of  the  Reformation.  To  the  Great 
Bible  of  Tyndale,  Coverdale,  and  Cranmer,  of 
1535-1540,  rather  than  to  the  Version  of  King 
James,  of  161 1,  or  the  Bishop's  Bible,  of  1571, 
we  may  trace  our  Prayer  Book  Psalter.  The  Of- 
fertory Sentences  are  not  from  any  recognized 
version,  but  were  probably  translated  by  Cran- 
mer, as  also  the  Benedictus,  Magnificat,  and 
Nunc  Dimittis.  The  Epistles  and  Gospels  are 
from  King  James'  Version,  while  the  Psalms 
sung  regularly  in  Morning  and  Evening  Prayer 
agree  in  the  main  with  the  Great  Bible.  Dean 
Stanley  eloquently  says  :  ''  The  Prayer  Book,  as 
it  stands,  is  a  long  gallery  of  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory, which,  to  be  understood  and  enjoyed 
thoroughly,  absolutely  compels  a  knowledge  of 
the  greatest  events  and  names  of  all  periods  of 
the  Christian  Church.  To  Ambrose  we  owe 
the  present  form  of  our  Te  Deum  ;  Charlemagne 
breaks  the  silence  of  our  ordination  prayers  by 
the  Veni  Creator  Spiritus.  The  persecutions 
have  given  us  one  Creed,  and  the  Empire  an- 
other. The  name  of  the  first  great  Patriarch 
of  the   Byzantine  Church  (Chrysostom)  closes 


The  Liturgy,  169 

our  daily  service  ;  the  Litany  is  the  bequest  of 
the  first  great  Patriarch  of  the  Latin  Church 
(Gregory)  amidst  the  terrors  of  the  Roman 
pestilence.  Our  Collects  are  the  joint  produc- 
tion of  the  Fathers,  the  Popes,  and  the  Reform- 
ers. Our  Communion  Service  bears  the  traces 
of  every  fluctuation  of  the  Reformation  through 
the  two  extremes  of  the  reign  of  Edward  to  the 
conciliating  policy  of  Elizabeth,  and  the  reac- 
tionary zeal  of  the  Restoration.  The  more 
comprehensive,  the  more  free,  the  more  impar- 
tial is  our  study  of  ecclesiastical  history,  the 
more  it  will  be  in  accordance  with  the  spirit 
and  letter  of  the  Church  of  England."  ' 

This,  then,  is  the  Prayer  Book  used  in  every 
church  of  the  Anglican  faith  and  order  through- 
out Christendom.  It  is  inevitable  that  a  book 
with  such  a  history  should  reflect  phases  of 
thought  and  feeling  that  the  world  for  the 
time,  and  perhaps  forever,  has  outgrown,  and 
should  contain  words  and  phrases  now  become 
obsolete.  And  it  is  quite  as  impossible  that 
it  should  conform  solely  to  the  experience  of 
any  one  age  or  phase  of  thought.  In  studying 
it  we  must  not  allow  our  minds  to  be  diverted 

*  Eastern  Church,  chap,  ii.,  p.  60. 


1 70  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

from    its  essential   principles   and   its   leading 
purpose,  to   any  mere   technicality  of  expres- 
sion   or   phrase    that    may   seem    ambiguous. 
Spiritual    birth    and    death    and    resurrection, 
humiliation  and  triumph,  self-sacrifice  and  rec- 
onciliation with  God,  the  true  relation  of  tem- 
poral and  eternal,  human  and  divine, — these  are 
the  essential  truths  of  the   Book  of  Common 
Prayer.     And  all  these  vital  truths  expressed 
in  the  seasons  of  the  Church  Year  group  them- 
selves  around   the   great   doctrine   of    all    true 
rehgious  thought,  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarna- 
tion.    In  that  doctrine  of  God  in  humanity,  lie 
the  germs  that  have  expanded  into  the  various 
forms  of  common  prayer  and  praise,  the  Sacra- 
mental liturgy,  and  the  occasional  Offices.  From 
it,  as   the   central    doctrine    of    all    devotional 
thought  and  life,  come  the  observances  of  Ad- 
vent and   Christmas,   Epiphany,  Lent,  Easter, 
Whitsuntide,  and  Trinity,— all  commemorative 
of  that  life  that  forever  stands  as  the  type  of 
the  life  of  humanity,  the  Christ  in  his  headship 
of  the  body  of  which  we  are  members. 

For  us  who  believe  in  prayer  as  the  instinct- 
ive utterance  of  the  heart,  who  are  content  to 
pray  without  necessarily  framing  a  doctrine  of 


The  Liturgy.  171 

prayer,  what  words  can  be  found  more  simple, 
more  comprehensive,  more  tender,  than  the 
words  of  our  Collects.  How  direct  and  natural 
are  the  prayers  for  light  and  guidance,  for  the 
increase  of  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  for  defence 
against  dangers  temporal  and  spiritual,  for  right 
judgment  in  all  the  affairs  of  life,  and  for  stead- 
fastness in  the  way  of  truth.  And  how  broad 
and  rational  is  the  underlying  spirit  of  the 
Prayer  Book.  In  the  familiar  Collect  for  Peace 
it  recognizes  most  fully  that  "  all  holy  desires, 
all  good  counsels,  all  just  works  "  proceed  from 
the  inspiration  of  God.  Following  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  and  Paul,  it  declares  that  "all  our 
doings  without  charity  are  nothing  worth." 
Where  it  has  one  expression  that  would  seem 
to  make  salvation  in  anywise  dependent  upon 
metaphysical  or  doctrinal  rectitude,  like  Christ's 
own  teachings,  it  has  a  hundred  testifying  to 
the  supreme  importance  of  righteous  life.  Its 
Creeds  are  catholic  as  truth  itself,  its  doctrine  of 
the  Church  is  not  limited  by  the  accidents  or 
expedients  of  a  single  age  or  intellectual  con- 
dition.'    It  not  only  embodies  the  divine  rich- 

'"  The  mystical  body  of  Thy  Son,  which  is  the  blessed  com- 
pany of  all  faithful  people."' — Service  for  Holy  Communion. 


172  Heart  of  the  Ci^eeds. 

ness  of  the  words  of  Christ,  but  it  reflects  the 
inspired  zeal  of  St.  Paul,  the  love  of  St.  John, 
the  fervor  of  St.  Peter,  the  catholicity  of 
Athanasius,  the  vast  learning  of  the  most  gifted 
of  the  Fathers — Origen,  the  eloquence  of  the 
golden-mouthed  Chrysostom,  the  logic  of  Au- 
gustine, the  wisdom  of  Cranmer  and  his  fellow- 
workers  ;  and  among  its  sacred  associations  are 
enshrined  the  devotion  and  faith,  the  prayers 
and  tears  and  sufferings  of  Apostles  and  Mar- 
tyrs, holy  women  and  Christ-like  men,  that 
whole  vast  company  "  who,  having  finished 
their  course  in  faith,  do  now  rest  from  their 
labors." 

And  when  we  remember,  as  we  all  should, 
that  long  ago,  our  own  forefathers  in  England, 
in  their  times  of  joy  or  sorrow,  of  peace  or 
penitence,  as  they  knelt  together  in  the 
churches  of  the  motherland,  used  the  same  Col- 
lects, sang  the  same  Te  Deum,  offered  the  peti- 
tions of  the  same  Litany,  and  thus  expressed 
emotions  of  religious  joy  or  sorrow,  identical 
with  those  that  we  their  children  feel,  how  in- 
comparably sacred  must  the  English  Prayer 
Book  seem.  Our  ritual,  in  grandeur  and  im- 
pressiveness,  is  far  below  that  of  ancient  Faiths 


The  Litttrgy,  i  "j^i 

like  those  of  Assyria  or  Egypt ;  and  indeed  in 
perfection  of  religious  art,  no  Reformed  Z\\\xxz\i 
can    compare  with  the  Church  of    Rome,  but 
taken  all  in  all,  what  service   speaks  so  directly 
to   the   heart,    or  so   simply  and  fittingly   ex- 
presses the  Religion  of  mankind,  the  primitive 
Faith  of   the  Church,  founded  by  our  Divine 
Master,  as  the  service  of  the  English  Book  of 
Common  Prayer.     The  failure  to  appreciate  its 
merits  among  people  of  Puritan  descent,  a  mis- 
take that  is  necessarily  fast  curing  itself,  is  due, 
not,  as  many  have  supposed,  to  the  possession 
of  more  vital  piety  or  more  rational  beliefs  by 
people  who  use  no  Book  of  Prayer,  but  to  that 
spirit  of  excessive  protest,  which  led  the  Puri- 
tans in  England  and  America  into  fanatical  in- 
tolerance of  much  that  the  wisest  minds  in  all 
ages  have  loved  and  upheld.' 

The  liturgy  of  the  Prayer  Book  is  not   per- 


^  No  movement  to  me  is  more  interesting  than  that  of  the 
return  in  our  day  of  so  many  of  the  children  of  the  Puritan 
Separatists  to  the  ancient  Church  and  her  liturgy.  For  ten 
centuries  and  more  our  ancestors  sang  the  same  hymns, 
prayed  the  same  prayers,  knelt  at  the  same  altars,  and  when- 
ever the  religious  horizon  widens,  and  the  narrowness  of 
present  sect  limitations  appears,  we  seem  to  turn  as  if  by 
natural  instinct  to  the  familiar  ways  which  through  mistaken 
conviction  those  ancestors  left  only  a  few  generations  ago. 


1 74  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

feet,  but  its  spirit  is  in  harmony  with  the  lead- 
ing idea  of  our  Church,  which  is  that  of  religious 
education^  and  to  him  who  uses  it,  it  becomes 
ever,  insensibly,  more  and  more  sacred  and 
dear.  There  are  times  when  extemporaneous 
prayers  may  be  necessary  or  at  least  desirable, 
but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  liturg-Ical 
instinct  which  has  expressed  itself  in  all  great 
Faiths,  demands  for  the  permanent  and  abiding 
use  of  worship  a  well  ordered  and  uniform 
ritual,  and  one  which  shall  bear  the  impress, 
not  of  a  single  mind,  but  of  many  minds  in 
many  successive  ages  of  religious  thought  and 
culture.  As  we  have  already  said,  modern  ex- 
temporaneous worship  receives  no  sanction 
from  any  of  the  great  Faiths  of  the  world,  nor 
could  it  have  been  desired  even  by  those  ultra 
Protestants  who  have  given  the  tone  to  much 
of  modern  Christianity,  Calvin  and  John  Knox, 
for  both  these  men  compiled  for  use  in  their 
day  liturgies  or  Books  of  Common  Prayer. 
Nor  does  it  satisfy  the  better  educated  people 
of  any  denomination  to-day.  Whenever  the 
spirit  of  religion  has  been  broad  and  catholic, 
the  value  of  historic  liturgies  has  been  felt,  and 
now  that  the  more  enlightened  people  of  mod- 


The  Littirgy.  i  75 

ern  sects  have  come  into  some  comprehension 
of  the  largeness  of  Christianity,  they  feel  the 
lack  of  catholicity,  lack  of  dignity  of  their  non- 
liturgical  worship. 

Little  by  little,  especially  among  the  chil- 
dren of  the  Puritans,  worship,  seeking  forms 
that  are  adequate  for  its  true  expression,  is 
turning  itself  into  the  well  worn  channels  that 
the  Catholic  faith  has  made,  is  re-adopting  the 
forms  rendered  sacred  by  nearly  two  thousand 
years  of  constant  Christian  use.  The  Prayer 
Book,  both  as  a  literary  treasure  and  as  the 
noblest  manual  of  devotion  in  the  English- 
speaking  world,  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  parts 
of  our  inheritance  as  children  of  the  ancient 
Mother  Church. 

To  its  refining  and  spiritualizing  influence 
the  modern  world  now  owes  more  than  it  can 
possibly  understand,  and  as  Christianity  again 
returns  to  the  spirit  of  the  Christ  and  his  Apos- 
tles, the  ancient  liturgy  shall  exert  a  still  wider 
influence  and  secure  the  love  of  many  hearts 
that  have  not  yet  entered  into  sympathy  with 
its  divine  richness. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 


> 


/  177 


"  Death,  if  I  am  right,  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  separation 
of  two  things,  soul  and  body,  nothing  else.  And  after  they 
are  separated,  they  retain  their  several  characteristics  which 
are  much  the  same  as  in  life." — Plato,  "  Georgias." 

"  This  wonderfully  woven  life  of  ours  shall  not  be  broken 
by  death  in  a  single  strand  of  it  ;  it  shall  run  on  and  on,  an 
unbroken  life,  upheld  by  the  will  of  the  Eternal." — New- 
man Smyth. 

"  The  desire  of  knowledge  God  has  planted  naturally  in  us, 
as  hunger  is  natural  in  our  bodies,  or  the  want  of  light  in  our 
eyes.  And  the  eye  is  not  a  more  certain  indication  that  light 
is  to  be  given  than  our  desire  to  know  divine  things  is  that  we 
shall  be  permitted  to  know  them." — Horace  Bushnell. 

"  My  mind  can  take  no  hold  of  the  present  world,  nor  rest 
in  it  for  a  moment,  but  my  whole  nature  rushes  on  with  irre- 
sistible force  towards  a  future  and  better  state  of  being." — 
Fichte. 

"  My  own  dim  life  should  teach  me  this  : 
That  life  shall  live  forevermore  ; 
Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core, 
And  dust  and  ashes  all  that  is. 

"  Thou  wilt  not  leave  us  in  the  dust : 

Thou  madest  man,  he  knows  not  why  ; 
He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die  ; 
And  thou  hast  made  him  :  thou  art  just." 

— Tennyson. 

"It  is  in  Heaven  only  that  I  find  any  basis  for  our  poor 
pilgrimage  on  this  earth." — Carlyle. 

"  When  I  consider  the  wonderful  activity  of  the  mind,  so 
great  a  memory  of  what  is  past,  and  such  a  capacity  of  pene- 


178 


trating  into  the  future  ;  when  I  behold  such  a  number  of  arts 
and  sciences,  and  such  a  multitude  of  discoveries  thence  aris- 
ing, I  believe  and  am  firmly  convinced  that  a  nature  which 
contains  so  many  things  within  itself  cannot  be  mortal." — 
Cicero. 

"  The  seed  dies  into  a  new  life,  and  so  does  man." — 
George  MacDonald. 

"We  are  immortal.  Death,  as  we  call  it,  may  touch  our 
sensible  vesture,  but  it  is  only  a  vesture  which  decays.  Our 
being  goes  on  in  another  life  ;  for  we  live  in  His  life,  and  our 
true  world  is  not  this  world.  '  We  look  for  a  city  which  hath 
foundations.'  We  abide  in  Him,  and  He  in  us,  and  He  abides 
forever. 

"  Does  there  seem  to  be  a  Spirit  who  leads  us  through  life, 
conquering  the  years  in  us,  redeeming  us  from  all  evil,  bring- 
ing us  calm  out  of  sorrow,  faith  out  of  doubt,  strength  out  of 
trial  ?  And  when  He  has  made  us  great  of  spirit  like  Himself, 
does  He  bury  all  that  wealth  of  heart  in  nothingness  ? 

"  What  incredible  thing  is  this?  Only  credible  if  there  be 
no  God." — Stopford  Brooke. 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  I  shall  live  again  on  earth  or  else- 
where ;  whether  I  shall  be  a  being  of  three  dimensions  or  four, 
or  of  no  dimensions  at  all ;  whether  I  shall  be  in  space  or  out 
of  space.  It  is  far  better  to  give  up  speculations  about  acci- 
dental trifles,  such  as  these  ;  for  accidents  they  are,  as  com- 
pared with  the  essence  of  the  second  life,  which  consists  in 
Love." — Edwin  A.  Abbott. 

"  Then  climb  and  climb  forever  toward  the  day. 
And  fear  not  thou  shalt  miss  the  one  true  way." 

— Samuel  Greg. 


179 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

The  question  of  a  future  life,  in  its  religious 

or   its   speculative    aspect,  is   of   the   greatest 

interest  to  every  intelligent  mind.     We  have 

so  insatiable  a  craving  for  immortality,  and  are 

so  frequently  reminded  of  the  brevity  of  this 

life,  that  we  cannot  get  thoughts  of  the  future 

far  away  from  us  if  we  would.     And  in  most 

minds,  could  we  know  them  well,  there  are,  no 

doubt,  the    same  questionings  and  balancings 

of  probabilities  regarding  the  condition  of  the 

future  life,   if   there   be   any,  that  we    are   so 

familiar  with  in  ourselves.     Shall  we  continue 

to  exist  when  we  have  closed  our  eyes  upon 

this  world,   and,   if  so,   how   closely    shall   the 

life  beyond  resemble,  or  how  far  differ  from, 

that  we  are  living  now?     To  the  first  of  these 

questions,  many  of  the  most  enlightened  minds 

have  felt  obliged,  from  all  they  knew  of  God 

and  man,  to  answer,  Yes.     To  the  second,  the 

wisest    men   have    never   tried  to  give  a   very 

i8i 


1 82  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

definite  answer,  and  the  two  Creeds  of  Catho- 
lic Christendom  which  distinctly  affirm  belief  in 
the  fact  of  future  existence  are  utterly  silent  as 
to  its  precise  conditions. 

We  are,  however,  perfectly  familiar  with  the 
ideas  of  the  future  that  were  common  in  the 
Calvinistic  churches  a  little  while  ago,  but  of 
late  have  almost  disappeared  throughout  New 
England, — ideas  which,  based  on  the  most  lit- 
eral views  of  the  Bible,  shaped  themselves  into 
crude  and  sensuous  doctrines  of  heaven  and 
hell.  The  sermons  of  Jonathan  Edwards, 
preached  in  Northampton  150  years  ago,  pre- 
sent these  doctrines  in  their  naked  deformity, 
and  shall  stand  perhaps  to  all  time  as  the  finest 
testimony  in  Calvinistic  literature  to  the  want 
of  imagination  and  failure  to  comprehend  the 
Bible's  true  character  of  the  Calvinistic  mind. 

But  we  must  not  blame  the  Calvinists  as  if 
they  alone  were  responsible  for  the  crude  popu- 
lar theories  of  the  future  held  in  past  times. 
Dante's  *'  Inferno,"  as  well  as  Milton's  *'  Para- 
dise Lost,"  portrayed  for  the  world  a  "  mapped 
and  measured  "  heaven  and  hell;  Chrj^sostom, 
as  well  as  Jonathan  Edwards,  depicted  the  tor- 
ments of  the  lost  and  the  joys  of  the  saved  in 


The  Future  Life.  183 

language  full  of  gross,  material  figures.  In- 
deed the  Calvinists  inherited  much  that  was 
worst  in  all  their  theology  from  the  Mediaeval 
Church. 

In  his  recent  book,  "■  The  Destiny  of  Man," 
Mr.  John  Fiske  has  shown  that  the  Doctrine 
of  Development,  as  expounded  by  Mr.  Darwin 
and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  in  its  relation  to 
man,  almost  necessarily  implies  higher  ranges 
of  existence,  in  which  his  being  shall  have 
room  to  perfect  itself.  From  the  nature  of 
the  case,  he  argues,  scientific  demonstration 
of  future  existence  is  out  of  the  question, 
since  we  cannot  test  the  matter  except  by 
dying,  but  equally  impossible  is  scientific  dem- 
onstration of  710  future  Hfe,  and  **  he  who  re- 
gards Man  as  the  consummate  fruition  of  cre- 
ative energy,  and  the  chief  object  of  Divine 
care,  is  almost  irresistibly  driven  to  the  belief 
that  the  soul^s  career  is  not  completed  with  the 
present  life  upon  earth.  .  .  .  From  the  first 
dawning  of  life  we  see  all  things  working  to- 
gether toward  one  mighty  goal,  the  evolution 
of  the  most  exalted  spiritual  qualities  which 
characterize  humanity.  .  .  .  Are  Man's  high- 
est spiritual  qualities,  into  the  production    of 


184  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

which  all  this  creative  energy  has  gone,  to  dis- 
appear with  the  rest  ?  Has  all  this  work  been 
done  for  nothing?  Is  it  all  ephemeral,  all  a 
bubble  that  bursts,  a  vision  that  fades?  Are 
we  to  regard  the  Creator  s  work  as  like  that  of 
a  child,  who  builds  houses  out  of  blocks,  just 
for  the  pleasure  of  knocking  them  down?  For 
aught  that  science  can  tell  us.  it  may  be  so,  but 
I  can  see  no  good  reason  for  believing  any 
such  thing.  On  such  a  view  the  riddle  of  the 
universe  becomes  a  riddle  without  a  meaning. 
Why,  then,  are  we  any  more  called  upon  to 
throw  away  our  belief  in  the  permanence  of 
the  spiritual  element  in  Man  than  we  are  called 
upon  to  throw  away  our  belief  in  the  constancy 
of  Nature?" 

It  is  most  certainly  true  that,  whatever 
doubts  may  arise  in  individual  minds  concern- 
ing personal  immortality,  science  has  nothing 
to  say  against  it,  and  when  we  consider  the 
almost  universal  longing  for  it,  the  tendency  of 
the  race  to  believe  in  it,  the  affirmations  of 
master  minds  like  Plato's,  Plutarch's,  Montes- 
quieu's, Emerson's  —  minds  necessarily  free 
from  narrow  religious  bias  of  any  sort :  when 
we  think  of  the  latent  capacities  and  powers  of 


The  FtUure  Life.  185 

man,  of  some  of  which  we  have  as  yet  received 
only  the  feeblest  intimations,  of  the  marvellous 
spiritual  grasp  of  his  nature  and  the  hunger  of 
his  soul  for  truth  and  perfect  life  ;  when  we  re- 
member how  he  can  love  and  hate  and  pity 
and  forgive  ;  how  he  can  hope  and  enjoy  and 
suffer,  we  cannot  escape  the  conviction  that  a 
larger  sphere  must  somewhere  be  appointed 
him,  in  which  to  work  out  a  grander  destiny 
than  he  ever  approaches  in  his  brief  and  limited 
career  upon  this  earth.  We  might  possibly 
think  that  the  great  dramatic  purpose  of  God 
needed  for  its  fulfilment  that  the  temporary 
flame  that  burns  in  human  souls  should  forever 
die  and  disappear,  and  that  it  was  our  duty  to 
be  willing  to  yield  up  our  lives,  and  sink  into 
nothingness,  if  so,  God  might  be  better  glorified, 
were  it  not  for  all  we  have  learned  to  believe, 
not  only  of  His  love  and  sympathy  for  us,  but 
of  the  divine  relationship  between  His  intelli- 
gence and  ours.  When  we  examine  our  own 
thought,  which  we  believe  to  be  His  thought 
in  us,  and  find  what  it  has  to  say  concerning 
justice  and  righteousness  and  the  enduring 
power  of  love,  we  are  sure  He  has  not  raised 
us  up  to  love  and  hate  and  hunger  and  grope 


1 86  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

for  light  denied  us,  and  in  the  height  of  the 
struggle  to  go  down  mocked  and  disappointed 
into  everlasting  unconsciousness.  The  soul, 
which  is  an  effluence  from  Him,  might  at  death, 
as  many  have  believed,  be  swept  back  once  more 
into  Deity,  if  it  were  not  that  in  projecting  our 
souls  into  existence.  He  has  chosen  to  give  us 
each  an  identity  as  real  as  His  own,  and  to 
make  even  the  thought  of  non-existence  as  im- 
possible to  us  as  to  Himself.  We  cannot  think 
of  ourselves  as  ceasing  to  exist.  The  effort  to 
imagine  ourselves  dead,  is  always  accompanied 
by  the  wider  thought  of  ourselves  as  con- 
sciously alive  to  know  that  we  are  dead.  We 
cannot  get  away  from  the  belief  in  personal  im- 
mortality, however  we  may  try,  or  however 
loudly  the  voices  of  doubt  and  despondency 
within  us  may  call  to  us  to  j'ield  up  our  faith. 
And  when  to  the  revelation  of  eternal  life  given 
us  by  our  own  souls  we  add  the  calm  and  un- 
wavering belief  of  Christ  in  the  continuance  of 
existence,  we  may  well  feel  that  but  one  answer 
can  be  given  to  the  question  so  often  and  eager- 
ly asked,  "  Does  death  end  all  ?  "  The  immor- 
tality we  desire  and  have  a  right  to  expect  is 
more  than  the  resumption  of  our  souls  back  into 


The  FtUure  Life.  187 

Deity,  more  than  the  simple  persistence  of  the 
life  principle  we  possess  through  other  forms  of 
being,  more  than  the  mere  immortality  of  our 
influence  in  the  race,  it  is  the  continuance  of 
conscious,  personal  existence  for  ever  and  ever. 
The  aged  Victor  Hugo  expressed  the  confi- 
dent belief  of  many  of  the  maturest  minds  of 
the  ages  when  he  wrote  : 

"  I  feel  in  myself  the  future  life.  I  am  like  a  for- 
est which  has  been  more  than  once  cut  down.  The 
new  shoots  are  stronger  and  livelier  than  ever.  I 
am  rising,  I  know,  toward  the  sky.  The  sunshine 
is  on  my  head.  The  earth  gives  me  its  generous 
sap,  but  heaven  lights  me  with  the  reflection  of  un^ 
known  worlds. 

"  You  say  the  soul  is  nothing  but  the  resultant  of 
bodily  powers.  Why  then  is  my  soul  the  more  lu- 
minous when  my  bodily  powers  begin  to  fail  ?  Win- 
ter is  on  my  head  and  eternal  spring  is  in  my  hearts 
Then  I  breathe,  at  this  hour,  the  fragrance  of  the 
lilacs,  the  violets,  and  the  roses  as  at  twenty  years, 

''  The  nearer  I  approach  the  end  the  plainer  I  hear 
around  me  the  immortal  symphonies  of  the  worlds 
which  invite  me.  It  is  marvellous  yet  simple.  It  is 
a  fairy  tale,  and  it  is  history.  For  half  a  century  I 
have  been  writing  my  thoughts  in  prose,  verse,  his- 
tory, philosophy,  drama,  romance,  tradition,  satire, 
ode,  song — I  have  tried  all.  But  I  feel  that  I  have 
not  said  the  thousandth  part  of  what  is  in  me. 


1 88  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

"When  I  go  down  to  the  grave  I  can  say,  like  so 
many  others  :  *  I  have  finished  my  day's  work'  ; 
but  I  cannot  say  :  *  I  have  finished  my  life.'  My 
day's  work  will  begin  again  the  next  morning.  The 
tomb  is  not  a  blind  alley  ;  it  is  a  thoroughfare.  It 
closes  in  the  twilight  to  open  with  the  dawn. 

"  I  improve  every  hour  because  I  love  this  world 
as  my  fatherland.  My  work  is  only  a  beginning. 
My  monument  is  hardly  above  its  foundation.  I 
would  be  glad  to  see  it  mounting  and  mounting  for- 
ever.    The  thirst  for  the  infinite  proves  infinity." 

The  common  belief  of  Calvinism,  based  on  a 
literal  view  of  certain  passages  of  Scripture,  was 
not  only  that  at  death  people  went  on  living, 
but  that  they  went  on  living  under  certain  fixed 
and  unalterable  conditions  ;  conditions  of  ma- 
terial bliss  or  woe  that  should  be  the  same  mil- 
lions of  ages  hence  as  they  were  the  next  mo- 
ment after  death.  The  two  chief  elements  this 
doctrine  contained,  were  the  ideas  of  absolute 
stagnation  of  life  in  the  world  to  come,  and  of 
endless  duration.  It  is  almost  unnecessary  to 
say  that  in  whatever  the  New  Testament  says 
about  the  future  life,  the  first  of  these  ideas 
is  not  to  be  found  at  all,  and  the  second,  which 
Calvinism  always  made  most  prominent,  is  really 
incidental.     Without  discussing  passages  sepa- 


The  Future  Life.  189 

rately,  It  may  be  stated  that  Christ  in  all  his 
discourses  used  the  familiar  language  of  Jewish 
theology  to  impress  on  people's  minds  the  pro- 
found truths  he  desired  to  make  them  feel. 
When  he  spoke  of  heaven  and  hell,  of  Abra- 
ham's bosom  and  paradise,  it  was  not  to  map 
out  and  localize  the  future  for  the  Jews  to 
whom  he  spoke,  but  to  make  them  feel  the 
supreme  importance  of  the  principles  of  right- 
eousness.  The  Jews  in  his  time  had  a  certain 
sensuous  imagery  under  which  no  doubt  the 
most  enlightened  of  them  concealed  their  true 
thought,  but  which  to  the  mass  of  the  people 
was  exactly  descriptive  of  the  reality  of  the 
future  life.  The  primitive  Hebrew  belief  seems 
to  have  been  that  the  spirits  of  those  who  died  ^ 
went  indiscriminately  into  sheol,  a  vast  subter- 
ranean tomb — the  underworld, — with  barred  and 
bolted  gates,  where  they  lay  silent  like  corpses. 
If  there  were  distinctions  there,  they  were  not 
moral,  but  national  or  social,  and  to  that  under- 
world Jehovah's  reign  was  believed  not  to  ex- 
tend. Thus  the  Psalmist  says  with  true  devo- 
tional feeling,  and  in  protest  against  excluding 
God  from  any  part  of  His  universe  :  *'  If  I  as- 
cend up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there  ;  if  I  make 


190  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

ffty  bed  ill  hell,  {sheol)  behold  thou  art  there.''  Later 
the  belief  seems  to  have  grown  up  that  from  the 
dominion  of  death,  the  king  of  sheol,  faithful 
Israelites  should  eventually  be  released,  while  the 
wicked  and  Gentiles  should  still  be  kept  in  the 
underworld.  It  was  not  until  after  the  Exile, 
which  terminated  in  the  fifth  century  before 
Christ,  that  the  belief  grew  up  which  seems  to 
have  become  fully  settled  before  Christ's  time, 
that  the  unseen  world  comprised  two  distinct 
localities — a  Paradise,  and  an  Inferno,  the  ge- 
henna  of  St.  Matt,  v.,  22,  29,  30  ;  x.,  28  ;  St.  Mark 
ix.,  43,  45,  47  ;  St.  Luke  xii.,  5  ;  and  a  few  other 
passages.  In  many  places  in  the  New  Testament 
the  word  translated  hell  in  the  authorized  ver- 
sion is  the  Greek  word  hades,  which,  like  the 
Hebrew  word  sheol,  means  simply  the  under- 
world, and  has  no  necessary  connection  with 
the  thought  of  retribution. 

The  Book  of  Enoch,  which  originated  in 
Palestine  in  the  second  century  before  Christ, 
and  the  second  Book  of  Esdras  (chap,  ii.,  19), 
describe  Paradise  as  a  restored  Eden,  where  all 
is  peace  and  prosperity,  where  there  are  moun- 
tains covered  with  lilies  and  roses,  where  milk 
and  honey  are  plentiful,  and  as  in  the  Revela- 


The  Future  Life.  191 

tio7t,  trees  perpetually  bear  delicious  fruits. 
Another  figure  under  which  the  Hebrews  de- 
scribed Paradise  was  that  of  a  banquet  with 
the  Patriarchs  and  Prophets/  where  reclining 
on  couches  some  might  even  lean  their  heads 
on  Abraham's  bosom,  than  which,  to  a  faithful 
Jew,  no  honor  could  be  greater,  no  bliss  more 
perfect.  Correspondingly  dreadful  was  their 
language  concerning  the  abode  of  woe.  They 
named  it  gehenna,  or  the  valley  of  the  sons  of 
Hinnom,  because  in  that  valley,  just  outside 
the  city  walls,  the  offal  from  the  Temple  sacri- 
fices and  all  sorts  of  rubbish  were  made  to  feed 
a  fire  that  rarely,  if  ever,  was  suffered  to  go 
out.  It  was  the  perpetual  abode  of  corruption 
and  fire,  and  its  ghastly  associations  supplied 
terrible  images  by  which  to  describe  the  condi- 
tion and  the  place  of  lost  spirits.  Indeed,  in 
the  lapse  of  time,  it  came  to  be  regarded  as  one 
of  the  mouths  of  the  pit  of  destruction  itself. 
This  will  throw  light  on  some  of  the  strongly 
figurative  language  of  the  New  Testament  con- 
cerning the  future  life  :  Jesus,  as  we  have  seen, 
spoke  to  his  people  in  their  own  language  ; 
their   familiar  religious  rites  and  doctrines  he 


^  See  St.  Luke  xiii.,  29  ;  xvi.,  22. 


192  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

did  not  assail,  nor  in  enforcing  truth  upon 
them  did  he  ignore  their  own  metaphors.  But 
it  will  be  noticed  that  he  uses  Jewish  figures 
only  when  talking  to  the  Sanhedrin,  or  the 
High  Priest,  or  Nathaniel,  not  when  talking  to 
the  Roman  governor,  to  whom  Jewish  figures 
would  have  had  little  meaning. 

Thus  we  see  the  origin  of  certain  opinions 
concerning  the  future  life  that  have  prevailed 
in  the  Christian  Church.  It  is  not  necessary 
here  to  trace  these  in  detail.  According  to  the 
temper  of  theologians  in  the  Early  Church, 
and  through  the  Middle  Ages,  belief  in  the 
future  assumed  a  milder  or  more  vindictive 
tone.  Some  believed  in  endless  tortures  for 
the  wicked  and  endless  bliss  for  the  good ;  with 
some  the  hottest  fires  of  perdition  were  re- 
served for  morally  wicked  men,  and  with  some, 
those  whose  thought  deviated  from  established 
lines  were  to  suffer  the  worst  punishments. 
Some,  like  Origen,  with  a  finer  ethical  sense 
and  a  truer  belief  in  God,  in  the  spirit  of  St. 
Paul  ^  looked  forward  and  prophesied  the  final 

'  See  I  Cor,  xv.,  22,  24-28  ;  Romans  viii.,  21,  23  ;  also 
Hebrews  ii.,  14.  In  the  New  Testament  there  are  as  many 
texts  for  the  doctrine  of  the  Restitution  of  all  things  as  for  any 
other  doctrine  of  the  future. 


The  Future  Life,  193 

triumph  of  righteousness  and  peace.  In  the 
Early  Church,  the  doctrine  of  an  Intermediate 
State  between  this  world  and  the  final  heaven 
and  hell  was  commonly  taught,  a  doctrine 
which  afterward  in  the  Middle  Ages  held  its 
place  as  a  belief  in  Purgatory,  whose  cleansing 
fires  should  make  it  possible  for  some  of  the 
many  millions  who  had  died  impenitent  or  un- 
baptized  to  be  purified  and  so  at  last  reach 
heaven.  In  the  later  Calvinistic  belief  there 
was  no  such  merciful  provision,  the  soul  at 
death  being  received  at  once  into  unending 
bhss,  or  driven  into  unending  woe.  Taine  says 
of  the  Puritans :  "  The  feeling  of  the  difference 
there  is  between  good  and  evil  had  filled  for 
them  all  time  and  space,  and  had  become  in- 
carnate and  expressed  for  them  by  such  words 
as  Heaven  and  Hell,"  and  as  one  can  see  from 
the  writings  of  such  men  as  Jonathan  Edwards, 
no  palliation  of  the  sufferings  themselves,  nor 
shortening  of  their  duration,  was  felt  to  be  pos- 
sible for  "sinners  in  the  hands  of   an  angry 

God." 

Under  all  these  gross,  mistaken  conceptions 
of  the  future  we  may  discern,  however,  the 
true   principles  Christ  taught ;    of   which    our 


1 94  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

Church,  rational  and  moderate,  by  her  refusal  in 
all  her  history  to  adopt  the  Calvinistic  lan- 
guage, and  her  little  interest  in  current  disputes 
concerning  the  state  of  the  departed,  teaches 
us  chiefly  to  think. 

Heaven  and  hell  are  states  of  the  soul,  not 
places  of  arbitrary  reward  and  punishment. 
Jesus  taught  nothing  concerning  the  objective 
conditions  of  the  life  beyond  ;  he  did  teach  that 
obedience  to  God's  laws  brings  life  and  immor- 
tality, that  disobedience  brings  death,  which  is 
the  loss  of  light  and  power.  In  this  world 
and  all  worlds,  it  was  the  mission  of  his 
life  to  teach,  righteousness  redeems  the  soul, 
lifting  it  to  heights  of  knowledge  and  peace 
it  has  not  known  before,  while  sin  narrows  the 
life  and  works  therein  confusion  and  dismay. 
No  word  has  been  more  common  in  Christian 
speech  than  the  word  salvation,  and  no  word 
has  been  more  mistakenly  or  at  least  unintelli- 
gently  used.  To  be  saved,  means  to  be  under- 
going that  process  of  growth  in  knowledge  and 
goodness,  that  leads  gradually  onward  toward 
the  state — for  man  never  attainable — of  abso- 
lute perfection  ;  to  be  lost,  means  to  be  slowly 
falling  away  from  light  and  truth,  to  be  going 


The  Future  Life,  195 

downward  not  upward  in  the  scale  of  being. 
When  Jesus  wept  over  Jerusalem  and  her  unbe- 
lief, and  bade  the  weary  world  before  him  drop 
its  burdens  and  replace  them  with  his  easy  yoke, 
or  flee  from  wrath  to  come,  he  was  not  contem- 
plating a  lake  of  burning  sulphur  on  the  one 
hand  and  a  paradise  of  sensual  delight  on  the 
other,  but  rather  the  ruin  of  the  moral  nature, 
or  the  perfection  of  the  life  of  man.  With  a 
power  of  spiritual  vision  that  no  other  possessed, 
he  looked  into  the  soul  of  man  and  was  filled 
with  enthusiasm  over  its  divine  possibilities,  or 
else  with  unutterable  grief  over  its  prophecies 
of  ruin  and  decay  ;  and  like  all  the  greatest  re- 
ligious teachers,  he  sought  to  reveal  to  men  the 
great  unacknowledged  fact  of  their  sonhood  of 
God,  and  so  to  make  them  conscious  of  the  di- 
vine power  within  them  by  means  of  which  they 
might  rise  superior  to  the  limitations  of  sin  and 
sense.  His  figurative  language,  which  to  later 
theologians  seemed  to  imply  that  throughout 
unending  ages  men  should  remain  just  as  this 
life  left  them,  really  implied  endless  expansion 
and  growth.  The  word  which  in  our  author- 
ized version  is  sometimes  translated  eternal^ 
sometimes  everlasting,  contained,  as  Christ  used 


196  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

it,  far  more  and  other  than  the  mere  notion  of 
endlessness  of  time.  Eternal  Hfe  was  the  free- 
dom from  all  limitations  that  the  soul  gains  by- 
increased  consciousness  of  God  ;  eternal  death 
was  the  loss  of  light  and  liberty,  the  narrowness 
and  slavery  of  soul  that  comes  when  God  is 
forgotten  and  His  laws  disobeyed.  The  essen- 
tial idea  in  the  word  life  is  that  of  change  :  no 
living  soul  can  stand  still  here  or  hereafter ;  nor 
in  view  of  the  instinctive  belief  in  the  trium- 
phant power  of  goodness  which  has  expressed 
itself  in  those  passages  of  Scripture  that  speak 
of  future  redemption  for  the  race,  and  the 
final  conquest  of  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
by  God,  and  that  every  day  finds  expression  in 
the  devout  hopefulness  and  cheerful  prophecy 
of  reverent  minds,  can  we  believe  that  sin 
and  suffering  are  to  go  on  in  the  universe 
forever. 

Emerson  quotes  George  Fox  as  saying : 
"  There  is  an  ocean  of  darkness  and  death,  but 
withal  an  infinite  ocean  of  light  and  love  which 
flows  over  that  of  darkness,"  and  this  is  the  be- 
lief of  healthy  souls. 

The  problem  of  evil  has  always  been  regarded 
as  insoluble  on  the  theory  of  a  perfect  God,  and 


The  Future  Life,  197 

yet  may  we  not  be  approaching  an  explanation 
of  it  when  we  think  of  "  imperfection  as  in 
some  sort  essential  to  all  that  we  know  of  life. 
Sign  of  life  in  a  mortal  body,  sign  of  a  state  of 
progress,  of  change  "  ?  ^  Cardinal  Newman  says 
very  significantly :  *'  The  laws  of  the  universe, 
the  principles  of  truth,  the  relation  of  one  thing 
to  another,  their  qualities  and  virtues,  the  order 
and  harmony  of  the  whole,  all  that  exists  is 
from  God ;  and  if  evil  is  not  from  Him,  as  as- 
suredly it  is  not,  this  is  because  evil  has  no  sub- 
stance of  its  own,  but  is  only  the  defect,  excess, 
perversion,  or  corruption  of  that  which  has."  "^ 
If,  then,  evil  is  the  excess,  negation,  or  wrong 
use  of  the  good,  its  true  corrective  will  be 
found,  as  in  the  universe,  so  in  the  individual 
life,  in  keeping  all  the  factors  of  life  in  proper 
balance.  To  do  less  or  more  than  law  requires, 
to  warp  things  from  their  proper  uses,  to  give 
the  lower  the  place  of  the  higher,  to  make  aims 
that  are  not  the  best  life's  chief  aims,  will  assur- 
edly result  in  evil.  To  observe  the  laws  that 
God  has  affixed  to  the  nature   of  things  will 

'  John  Ruskin. 

^  "  Discourses  on  the  Scope  and  Nature  of  University  Edu- 
cation," pp.  91-97. 


198  Heart  of  the  Creeds. 

redeem  the  world  and  all  its  conscious  life  from 
death  and  despair. 

"  O  Israel,  thou  hast  destroyed  thyself,"  says 
the  Prophet  Hosea,  speaking  for  God,  *'  but  in 
Me  is  thy  help,"  and  every  soul  in  all  the  world 
that  has  learned  that  living  for  self  means 
death,  and  living  for  God  means  life,  has  un- 
derstood the  double  note  of  despondency  and 
hope  that  sounds  in  the  Prophet's  words : 
**  God  has  not  appointed  us  to  wrath,  but  to 
obtain  salvation  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 
Righteousness  is  more  deeply  rooted  in  our 
natures  than  sin  ;  righteousness  is  our  true  life, 
sin  is  life's  contradiction ;  and  it  may  be  over- 
come. The  Calvinistic  view  of  man  as  natural- 
ly lost  to  God,  may  sometimes  seem  to  be  true, 
but  it  is  not  true.  God's  erring  children  may 
be  lost  to  themselves,  but  they  can  never  be 
lost  to  Him. 

We  have  dwelt  thus,  at  length,  on  the  nature 
of  salvation,  because  right  views  of  eternal  life 
and  death,  fulfilment  and  destruction,  are  at  the 
bottom  of  all  true  conceptions  of  the  future. 
We  do  not  know  what  the  conditions  of  the 
future  will  be,  what  new  bodies  we  shall  wear, 
what  new  homes  we  shall  live  in,  what  new  em- 


The  Future  Life,  199 

ployments  we  shall  have  ;  we  only  know  that  life 
means  growth  and  development,  and  that  eter- 
nity means  freedom  from  the  limitations  of  time 
and  sense.  "  Where  will  you  be  then  ?  "  said 
some  one  once  to  Luther.  **  Under  Heaven," 
he  answered,  and  the  words  implied  all  that 
we  mean  when  we  talk  about  the  impossibility 
of  ever  getting  away  from  the  divine  presence, 
the  divine  love. 

"  Our  joys  are  shaded.  The  perfect  smile  be- 
longs to  God  alone."  ^  Yet  if,  in  other  spheres, 
enlargement  of  spiritual  life  shall  mean,  as  it 
must  mean,  the  ever  more  and  more  perfect  re- 
flection in  us  of  the  perfect  **  smile"  of  God,  all 
our  vague  dreams  of  Heaven  shall  be  more  than 
realized. 

Hell  is  no  longer  to  the  enlightened  Christian 
mind  the  gehenna  of  the  Hebrews  or  the  sul- 
phureous lake  of  the  Calvinistic  creeds  ;  it  is 
something  far  more  terrible, — the  corruption 
and  narrowness  and  emptiness  and  loss  of  vital 
power  of  the  retrograding  soul. 

Heaven  is  not  pearls  and  flowers,  and  fruits 
and  banquets,  but  something  infinitely  better 
and  more  to  be  desired, — enlargement  of  soul, 

^  Victor  Hugo. 


200  Heart  of  the  Creeds, 

light,  and  liberty,  and  love  ;  "■  That  perfect  pres- 
ence of  God's  face  which  we  for  want  of  words 
call  Heaven." 

How  shall  we  escape  hell  and  gain  Heaven? 
By  following  conscience  and  true  self-love, 
which,  as  Bishop  Butler  says,  "  always  lead 
the  same  way." 

"  Be  docile  to  thine  unseen  Guide  ; 
Love  Him  as  He  loves  thee  : 
Time  and  obedience  are  enough, 
And  thou  a  saint  shalt  be."  ^ 


^  Faber. 


THE  END. 


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